Frosh Online Course Selection Continues

By Leah Nelson
Contributing Writer

This fall’s on-line course registration marked the University’s fourth on-line registration session since the system’s debut in 1997.

"I would say compared to the batch registration that upperclassmen have done in the past, it gives more control over choosing your schedule, because you know right away what classes you got into and could start calling professors immediately," said Starr Marcello ’00, a resident advisor who assisted with this fall’s registration. "The session I supervised personally went really well ...It’s not a perfect system, but I like it better."

On-line registration was conceived several years ago when President Douglas Bennet began discussing the possibility of an alternative registration method with the Registrar’s office and Information Technology Services (ITS). For years, students had complained about the old "batch" method, claiming that they rarely received a satisfactory schedule.

During the batch registration method, students enter their courses in order of preference into an ITS administered on-line computer database. The computer then randomly fills students’ schedules, using class year and major preference as guidelines.

According to ITS Director John Meerts, only 60 percent of students had a full roster by the end of the registration session using the old system. With on-line registration, over 90 percent of students had a full roster.

"The old system was optimized as, essentially, a huge lottery for fairness. The challenge was, how can we preserve fairness but maximize efficiency?" Meerts said.

Meerts worked with Registrar Billy Weitzer, Director of Technical Support Services Ganesan Ravishanker and Senior Analyst and Programmer Dan Koepf to design and implement the system. Eventually, almost every staff and student member of the ITS department was involved in the program’s creation.

"Definitely there was a sense of high intensity ...we really could not fail," Meerts said.

Frosh give the program mixed reviews.

"It sucked. I didn’t get any of the classes I wanted," said Matt Hallowell ’02. "I think that it’s not geared towards freshmen in the sense that upperclassmen pick their classes earlier so that most of the spaces are gone— so by the end of on-line registration, it leaves a lot of people totally up in the air about what their classes are."

Others were happier with the program’s performance.

"I thought that although it was an extremely chaotic process, it was probably the most effective way to disperse classes fairly and evenly," said Hallowell. "It eliminates the time frame of not knowing if you’re going to get the class or not."

ITS is currently developing several new systems, including electronic student portfolios and enhanced advising, which will work in tandem with on-line registration and should be in place by fall 2000.