Registration, Beeline get facelift

March 24, 2004
By Heather Venema
News Editor

Not a registration period goes by that students can’t be heard complaining about late hours, restrictions, and technical difficulties.  But luckily for students, that is all about to change.

The Beeline was first introduced in the fall of 2000, when 50% of the student population utilized the service.  Since that time, the rates of use for Beeline have jumped to 99%.  With the popularity of the service growing, many students had begun to provide concerns about the registration process, and a committee was formed to search for solutions.

The committee is made up of Irene Kremer from IT, Merredyth Beno from retention, Maureen Baldwin from advising, Dan Zeimet from records and registration, faculty reps Ryan Dye and Theresa Schlabach, and student reps Ben Kiel and Emma Crino.

One major area of concern the committee examined was the technical difficulties that had occurred when students were trying to register.  Students had felt frustrated because when they were logging on at midnight, there was no one around to help them if a problem came up.

This time, two groups of students will be permitted to register each day, with registration beginning at 5:00 p.m. for the first group.  The second group can begin registering at 7:00 p.m.  Also, the Records and Registration and Information Technology offices will remain open until 8 p.m. during registration to provide additional support. 

“The extended hours are consistent with our goal of better serving the student population,” registrar Dan Zeimet said.

IT recently added new links to Beeline, which give students the opportunity to monitor restrictions and advisor approvals.  This way, students will know of any restrictions they have prior to registration.

“In the past, students didn’t have any way to determine exactly why they weren’t able to register on what they thought was the appropriate day,” said Irene Kremer, director of Information Technology.  “With the new process, a student can verify that everything is ready.”

IT will also manually reset the network each day at 5:00 p.m., giving network space used for administrative offices to registration.  More students will be able to complete the process at a time, without interfering with the daily work that administrators complete.  The network will be reset again at 7:30 a.m. to switch operations back to normal.  The switch will devote 90% of the server space to registration each evening.

“We’re going to reallocate system resources to allow more students the ability to register at the same time,” Kremer said.

To relieve some of the frenzied stress that can happen at registration, Records and Registration will send out daily emails, updating students and advisors on closed classes.  The office has also restructured priority groups and built-in two preparation days.  Each grade level is now divided into four priority segments instead of three.  With the preparation days, one will happen on April 1 after senior registration, and the second will be on April 6 after junior registration.  The preparation days will benefit both upperclassmen and underclassmen.

 “Students with restrictions will have an opportunity to clear their situation and register before the next grade level,” Zeimet said.  “In addition, students that have pre-arranged an advising appointment with their advisor will be able to view the most up-to-date information just prior to their registration period.”

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