To improve the UBC application submission experience for learners, effective June 9, 2021, the character limit will be increased for a student’s given name, preferred name, middle name, last name, and city of residence in the Student Information System (SIS).
On this page:
Why are we making the change?
EducationPlannerBC, a centralized resource that helps learners plan, search and apply for admission to post-secondary institutions in British Columbia, is using the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council (PESC) approved standard to share applicant information with UBC. The PESC standard has longer character limits for the applicant’s name and city of residence fields than what UBC’s SIS can currently accommodate. As a result, the SIS will have its character limit for these fields increased to align with current PESC standards.
This change aims to accommodate learners with a longer given, middle, preferred, last name, or city of residence. The change is to ensure that information being entered on the EducationPlannerBC application can be successfully received by UBC and accurately reflected in our SIS. See below for details.
Where will you see the changes?
1. SISC - Name Banner
- For each name shown on the SISC - Name Banner, a maximum of 50 characters will be displayed.
2. SISC - Name Log screen
- A maximum of 50 characters can be entered and displayed in the “Given Name”, “Preferred Name”, “Middle Name”, and “Last Name” fields.
3. SISC - Addresses and Contact screen
- A maximum of 50 characters can be entered and displayed in the “City / Town” field.
4. SISC Searches
- The “Given Name”, “Preferred Name”, “Middle Name”, “Surname” (Last Name) and “City” data returned in SISC search results will display up to 50 characters.
Where you will not see changes
At this time, the character limit increase of the names and city of residence fields will not be reflected on all UBC systems and services since not all UBC systems are centralized. We encourage you to contact your local IT Administrator to discuss whether your departmental systems require changes.
More information
Please email student.systems@ubc.ca for further details or support regarding technical changes to the SIS.