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The Rice Thresher
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by Olivia Allison thresher editorial staff Will Rice College students will have an opportunity next week to preview the online registration system that should be implemented next fall. Students from every college will be able to view the system's search engine online, which will be capable of searching course listings by course title, department, time and distribution credit. "Let's say you want a history course between 10 and noon - you can search for that on the site," Registrar Jerry Montag said. The site will be linked to the Registrar's Office's Web site (http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~reg). The site will go online Monday, and Will Rice students will receive an e-mail notifying them of their eligibility for online registration. Will Rice students who choose to register online must first log on to the site, where they can then view academic information and "request" courses online, Montag said. Students can only log onto the preregistration site from computers in the Will Rice building or the Registrar's Office. Will Rice students will print the list of courses they intend to preregister for, which will have a bar code at the top of the page. They will then take the list to their divisional or major advisers. Once the adviser signs the list of courses, the students will take it to the Registrar's Office, where the bar code will be scanned. If there are no conflicts or changes, the computer system will automatically preregister the student for the requested courses. "What we're basically doing is instead of filling out the form and checking and whatever, you just print the form," Montag said. "The big difference comes when we have to register [in] the system. We just scan the code and at that point it goes into the Exeter system, which will check for scheduling conflicts, seat availability and the number of student's hours." The courses students initially request online will not be approved for preregistration unless the bar code of the schedule has been scanned. "They're basically going to request the courses on the Web," he said. "The student is not guaranteed a seat in the course. All they're doing is requesting a seat in the courses." All students will receive a list of their courses for the fall in mid-June, Montag said. Director of Academic Advising John Hutchinson said requiring students to get their academic adviser's signature ensures that they meet with their adviser. "The goal is to preserve the same interaction between academic advisers and students," Hutchinson said. "Online registration will not change it." Hutchinson said that while he is optimistic about this type of academic advising, it is not necessarily how advising will happen once all students register online. "This is our next pilot, and we will see how it works," Hutchinson said. "Our goal is to have a system that will enhance academic advising." Last fall, Wiess College freshmen had the option of using a preliminary online registration system, and Dean for Enrollment Administration Barry McFarland said many changes have been made to the system since then. McFarland, who served as the acting registrar last spring, said the most significant problem with the system Wiess freshmen used was a potential security risk. This has been corrected in the new version, which was made specifically for Rice. "We were concerned that there was a major security hole," McFarland said. "But now we have a new security piece in place. This piece has been completely prototyped at Rice for Rice, so it is as customized to Rice as we can make it." Will Rice students who use the registration system can also view their financial aid award packages and any transactions that have occurred through the Cashier's Office since the last bill was paid. Another feature of the new system is an academic planner, which will enable students to plan courses for the future. McFarland said this will help in the academic advising process. "A student could literally do with their adviser an entire three-year plan, and when they go back to register the next semester, they can see which of those courses they want to take," he said. "This is a planning tool available now that we think will be of great benefit to the student and to the advising function. "The idea is to help students plan ahead and to let them communicate that with their academic advisers so they won't end up being surprised that they're three hours short or missing some course." Will Rice students who have requested a degree audit will be able to view their most recent degree audit online. All students will be able to use the search engine in the online system for about two weeks, and then the Registrar's Office will take the system offline to review student feedback and make changes, McFarland said. If reaction to the system is positive, he said, it will be back online in August. "If all goes very well, we still have some more work to do, but in August, we'll break it out for the university," he said. "We're doing this [trial at Will Rice] so that when we do it, it's going to be as good as we can make it." McFarland said Will Rice students who use the academic planner feature should be able to view their future course choices when the system goes back online in August. "The students' old information should come back up, unless they tell me it's a feature they really don't like," he said.
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