Wesleyan’s new registration system will make its debut during the upcoming pre-registration period beginning on Apr. 10.
“I’m hoping that it’s not about strategy, that it’s really about planning,” said Registrar Anna van der Burg.
Similar to the previous pre-registration system, the new system is composed of three distinct phases. During the planning period, each student ranks courses of interest in a course plan with the guidance of his or her Academic Advisor.
The Wesleyan curriculum will continue to be presented in WesMaps, and students will be able to organize their planning through the electronic portfolio. Advisors must approve course plans before the registration system will recognize them.
“A lot of the advising happened after [registration in the previous system],” said ITS Director of Administrative Systems Steven Machuga. “We’re hoping that the new system encourages more advisor guidance beforehand.”
During the pre-scheduling period, the pre-registration system assigns classes based on the criteria of class standing, major preference, seat availability, the number of times a student has previously requested the course, as well as whether the student has met the pre-requisites or has the permission of the instructor.
“It’s not quite so wrapped up in a one-click moment,” Machuga said.
During the adjustment period, students may alter their assigned schedules and submit ranked drop/add requests for those courses that did not accept them. The adjustment period will open to students in a staggered fashion, in order to honor those students whom the system was not able to assign a sufficient number of courses. Students assigned to two or fewer credits during pre-scheduling are granted access on the first day, students assigned to three credits
or less are granted access on the second day, and the remaining students (assigned to more than three credits) are granted access on the third day of the adjustment period.
Unlike the previous registration system, if a student wishes to drop or add a course to his or her schedule during the adjustment period (which is similar to the previous advisor authorization period), he or she may do so directly through the electronic portfolio, rather than having to schedule an appointment with his or her advisor in order to make any changes. However, the advisor must approve a student’s final adjusted schedule.
The Drop/Add period will begin on the first day of classes in September and will function identically to that of the previous registration system.
“Our objectives are to be fair to students and to make the system simpler,” van der Burg said.
The new system has been in the works since January 2005, when both the Registrar’s Office and Information Technology Services (ITS) re-examined the registration process, which received regular complaints from both students and faculty.
The previous system, first implemented in 1997, was designed to discard the batch approach, in which each student submits a list of ranked courses and schedules are determined by an independent computer system, and to replace it with a system that allows students to make course choices in real time. The real-time approach was composed of three distinct phases: the browsing period, the reservation period, and the advisor authorization period.
Throughout its eight years of utilization, the real-time approach has been effective, but imperfect for a number of reasons. The infamous “clicking” reservation period was stressful for students, and individual reservation appointments were often inconvenient. The system deemphasized careful curriculum planning and faculty advising.
After the faculty approved the Registrar’s proposal for a new registration system in October 2005, the Registrar’s Office and ITS began designing the system.
The proposal and all developments were also presented to the Educational Policies Committee (EPC), a subcommittee of the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA).
“The mechanical details were already in progress [when the EPC became involved with the system’s development], said EPC Chair Sam Ruth ’08. ”Our responsibility was to give it some oversight.“
The EPC’s greatest contribution to the system is the two-column structure of the course plan. Students rank one first choice, followed by ranked courses in the order 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, 2B, 3B, 4B, 5B. During the pre-registration period, if a student is accepted into his or her first choice, the system then considers courses 2A – 5A. If a student is not accepted into the first choice, the system forwards to the second column and considers courses 2B – 5B. This allows the student to organize a secondary schedule for the chance that he or she does not receive the first choice.
”There was a lack of flexibility with only one column,“ Ruth said.
Students may list the same course or courses in both columns A and B, if they do not have nine different courses of interest.
Testing of the pre-registration system was completed last week with few mishaps.
During a test run, 55 percent of the student body submitted a sample schedule. On average, each student was accepted into 2.99 of his or her courses of interest.
”I’m quite excited,“ Ruth said. ”I was worried that students wouldn’t get a lot of classes, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem.“
As for any mishaps that may occur during the next few week’s pre-registration, no major problems are expected.
”It’s not a test run, but it’s certainly a first run,“ Machuga said.
In November, the Registrar will automate the forms for Prerequisite Override and Permission of Instructor. Students will submit their requests through the electronic portfolio, and instructors will respond online.
No additional major changes are planned for the new registration process.
Leave a Reply