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The Rice Thresher
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by Mark Berenson thresher staff While most students were collecting signatures from their academic advisers, freshmen from Wiess College were registering for classes online Wednesday and Thursday. Registrar Jerry Montag said he hopes that by pre-registration for spring 2002 classes, all students will be able to complete their registration online. In addition, Montag said, he hopes students will be able to check their financial record (including tickets and library late fees), get grades and complete the add/drop process online within two years. Wiess freshmen received an e-mail from Dean for Enrollment Administration Barry McFarland requesting their participation in this trial. Although they were not required to use Web registration, McFarland encouraged it so that there would be a large enough sample to see whether the system works. "We encourage Team Wiess to take the leadership and help us make this work well for Rice," McFarland wrote. The Wiess freshmen began the process by visiting a Web site accessed from computers in Mudd Building. McFarland said when the system is fully functional, the site will be accessible from any computer. At the site, students will be able to check class listings by department, read the General Announcements and sort classes by meeting times. Students will then be able to select their classes. When the student registers, an e-mail message is automatically sent to the student's adviser. The system will eventually be entirely Web-based, so that it won't require any e-mails to external accounts. Director of Academic Advising John Hutchinson said the adviser can then suggest a meeting with the student to discuss the schedule or the adviser can approve the schedule immediately. Hutchinson, who is also a Wiess master and a chemistry associate professor, said he does not think the new system will reduce face time between students and advisers. "Students will still have to have their adviser's approval in order to register just like they do now," Hutchinson said. "I actually think that this system will increase the amount of personal attention students will get from an adviser than decrease it." He said the current system of having divisional advisers simply eat lunch in the commons and sign pre-registration forms isn't really working. "In the majority of the cases, the students simply fill out a schedule and the adviser looks at it, says fine and signs it," Hutchinson said. The Web registration system would not interfere with this at all, he said. "The problem with the paper system is that the student tends to confront the adviser at inopportune times," he said. For example, signing forms in a college commons at lunch doesn't give advisers enough opportunity to carefully consider students' schedules. This week, Wiess freshmen also filled out paper pre-registration form as backups. The major complaint of those who registered online was the trek to Mudd, which many said eliminated the convenience of online registration. However, most still believed that the walk across campus was a minor inconvenience in exchange for future benefits. "It is good that the registrar is taking the initiative to be able to register online, because the paper method is antiquated ... and it will be much better in the future when you can do it on you own computer," Wiess freshman Allison Crnic said. Montag said while the system will not decrease interaction with students' advisers, it will allow a decrease in interaction with the Registar's Office. "Students will be able to avoid the Registrar's Office - that's my goal," Montag said. McFarland said that hopefully, forms for adding and dropping classes will be Web-based by next fall. To register for classes that require an instructor's permission, the professor would also approve students online. As in pre-registration, the approval of an adviser will be collected electronically. With an online Registrar's Office, faculty advisers would be able to see their students' grades online and faculty members would be able to enter grades online. Eventually, faculty members will be able to enter a student's final grade online. Then, the student could check her grade immediately after the professor enters the grade. McFarland said there are several problems in implementing the system. The first is a security hole that makes the system vulnerable to hacking. In addition, Rice is in the process of upgrading the system, which will not be done until winter break. Finally, McFarland said the office is not happy with the way password protection works now. However, McFarland believes that a Web-based Registrar's Office will be fully operational by the next academic year. "For next fall, we will definitely be 100 percent live [with Web registering]," he said.
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