|
Online registration planned
Registration may be online in two to three
years
By Dave Frank
Collegian Reporter
While leading schools are streamlining their
online registration system in an attempt to make the process
more user-friendly and smaller, and less computer savvy schools
are switching from phone to online registration, Hillsdale appears
to be behind the times.
"I definitely would have liked to have
[registered] at home on my computer before I ever came to school,
so I wouldn't have to worry about marching all over the place,"
sophomore Andrew Clark said. "I could just come here and
go to class, like every other college in the world."
So when will students see a change?
According to Ken Cole, chief administrative
officer and vice president for finance and treasurer, online
registration is still in the planning stages. Cole said that
although there isn't a definite time frame yet, a system could
be implemented in as soon as two to three years.
The school would probably wait to install
a complete administrative software program because it would
be more cost-effective than just installing the registration
software, Registrar Rich Moeggenberg said.
The program would allow students to view their
transcripts, change their adviser, apply for graduation and
view their grades online.
"You could do just the registration process,
but that piece on its own would probably be relatively expensive
for what you were getting, because it would be just a stand-alone
solution," David Zenz, executive director of Information
Technology Services, said.
Moeggenberg and Cole said they had heard presentations
by administrative software companies FCT and Datatel in the
last two days and had more presentations scheduled in the near
future.
Zenz estimated implementing an administrative
software system could take up to 16 months and cost over $1
million.
"For working with the institution and
the training that would be necessary would be equivalent to
the software cost. That's a pretty good rule of thumb,"
Zenz said. "There's also conversion costs that would be
anywhere from a third to equivalent to the software cost."
But the current system isn't without advantages,
administrators say.
"I'll be the first to say that there
are better and easier ways to register students at Hillsdale
College from both the college's perspective and the students'
perspective," Moeggenberg said. "From the positive
side, however, everything is taken care of before you step into
the classroom and that's not true at all schools. If you needed
to change your classes, if your bill wasn't paid, if you had
to get a parking sticker, if you had to get an ID, you'd be
going around campus to several different offices."
Cole agreed.
"When you can have one location, even
though it takes a couple of days to do it, to complete most
of the administrative needs of students, that's very helpful,"
he said.
Moeggenberg also said this is part of the
reason for a two-day registration, so those students who don't
need to make changes to their schedule and have their bill paid
off can go through the shorter lines on Tuesday.
There are some things the students might lose
by an online registration system.
"One of the things we want to keep is
the personal touch… We want there to be interaction between
students and their advisers," Moeggenberg said.
He also said the registrar's office would
still be open to students if a new system were put into place.
|
