UR, like many other colleges, will soon offer online registration. Online registration for college classes is a completely automated process that allows students to register for classes simply by filling out a form on a Web page without dealing with long lines during registration week.
Registrar and Assistant Dean for Institutional Research Nancy Speck said that they are “currently working on having online registration by next fall.”
“Online registration has been on everyone’s mind for [more than] two years,” Speck said.
Implementing online registration has been a slow and complicated process, though. UR has never used phone registration, so to implement online registration they have to do a lot more work than most schools.
“The hard part is the interface between the student information database and the Internet,” Speck said.
The process is complicated by UR’s data system. The age of the software makes it difficult to add new features. Since improvements are intended for the SIS, the new online registration must be able to be adapted. This makes it difficult and expensive to find a registration system that can meet both current and future needs, according to Speck.The change will be very welcome to UR students. “I think that the current system is inefficient,” sophomore Lisa Fountain said. “The way they run it right now is ridiculous.”
Sophomore Alexa Finn agreed. “Last year I had to wait two or three hours to register.”
“It’s a lot of trouble,” freshman Gershon Gialer said.
“It will make things easier for everyone, us and the people at the computers,” junior Laura Zysman said. “Some of us are just lazy and don’t want to leave our rooms.”
Online registration aims to cut down on long lines and student frustration.
“Most people register online,” RIT sophomore George Cooper said.
“Going in person is last resort. 6 a.m. is a major problem time because that is when both systems open and several thousand students try to use it at once.”
With the new technology, the role of academic advisers at UR will receive an upgrade as well.
When asked about the fate of advisers, Speck answered, “Freshmen and first semester sophomores will register online, and there will be a mechanism for their faculty advisers to sign off for their classes electronically as well.”
