Students registering for summer and fall classes will notice dramatic changes to the registration system according to Louis Hunt, vice provost and university registrar. Hunt said the changes in the system, such as automatic prerequisite enforcement and a wish list feature, have been in the works for several years.
“The old system is old technology,” he said. “This system was purchased quite a while ago. It’s just a step in the integrating process.”
The transition is part of a necessary updating of software on many University systems, Hunt said.
Although the transition should be mostly beneficial, Hunt said, he warned it will also be tough.
“This is a massive amount of change, the largest amount of change we’ve ever put the University through, and that is inherently difficult,” Hunt said. “We’re quite optomistic about the way things are going.”
Janell Moretz-Henderson, an academic advisor for the College of Natural Resources, said she is hearing complaints from students.
“The feedback I’ve gotten isn’t positive,” Moretz-Henderson said. “Students aren’t real crazy about it.”
Upperclassmen in particular are having the most trouble, Moretz-Henderson said, because they are most accustomed to the older system. She said the system isn’t too hard, but it will take a lot of getting used to.
“Once we get students accalamated to it, and we’re more acclamated ourselves… it will be a positive change,” Moretz-Henderson said. “It is an easier system, it is just retraining yourself.”
The system is so different that all advisors had to go through a training process so they could educate students, Moretz-Henderson said.
But Moretz-Henderson said the new features of the system are a plus, with beneficial changes on both the student and the faculty side of things.
Some of the new benefits Moretz-Henderson and Hunt mentioned are extended waitlists until the fifth day of a class, a swap feature so students don’t have to drop a class and then add one quickly, automatic prerequisite enforcement and being able to access the requirements of different degrees that are not a student’s particular major, just to name a few.
Some students, however, don’t even know about of most of these features.
“I wasn’t even aware of those things. Maybe they could adverise about it more or put it in the tutorial,” David Drosback, a senior in mechanical engineering, said.
Moretz-Henderson said another big change is the introduction of a wish list. Students will be able to log in before their window opens and add all of the courses they wish to take. Then, whenever it is time for the student to register, they just log in, click and it automatically adds all of the courses on the wish list if they are still available. It will then show a window notifying the student of courses added to the schedule.
Drosback said he did use this feature, but that the old system worked better for him.
“It was difficult. I never found the tutorial until after the fact,” he said. “It was a time-consuming process.”
But although some students are having a little trouble, Hunt said the transition has gone well so far.
“I’m very pleased with how its gone and I don’t think you’ll find a smoother transition in the country,” Hunt said, adding that the new system will be better for the University as it continues to change. “[The features of the system] should provide a lot of flex, but the real thing is that… it meets the changing needs of the institution.”
The previous system was so old that it just didn’t make much sense anymore, Hunt said.
“Our old system was written 25 years ago and the assumptions that were made don’t apply to the University anymore,” he said.
Hunt also said a number of things are in the works that make this change necessary because the old system couldn’t accomodate the needs.
“You might have new types of sessions in summer school,” Hunt said. “We’re making a new grading option for the vet school. We’re [moving toward] applying for graduation online. We will be replacing the degree audit system.”
The new system is one to which many other large schools have already switched, Hunt said.
“This system is used by most large schools like ourselves,” Hunt said, mentioning Stanford, UCLA and Wisconsin-Madison in particular.
Moretz-Henderson said she noticed one downfall for the system.
“I find it to be a lot of clicking,” she said.
