Volume 67, Issue 4  

Web Registration
Pilot Program to Debut This Spring

by Avi Levine

After months of joint effort between the Office of Enrollment Management and the Management and Information Systems Department, Yeshiva is gearing up to test a pilot run of the much anticipated online registration system this coming spring.  This program will enable students to register for classes and access their financial information entirely over the Internet.

“This was done in large measure in response to strong student demand for web registration,” said University Registrar Dr. Lea Honigswachs.  For years, Yeshiva students have been requesting a more efficient process for course registration.  Many other universities have already adopted the system of online registration, and students would like to see Yeshiva enter the twenty-first century world of technology. 

“Jews are impatient to begin with,” exclaimed a Yeshiva College sophomore who spoke on condition of anonymity.  “Throw hundreds of Jewish students into a building to wait on long lines to register for classes that they need to graduate but that can close out at any moment, and the result is complete chaos.  I am very excited for the new online registration process.”

For many months, members of the Office of Enrollment Management and the MIS Department have invested considerable time and effort developing and testing the various components of the online registration system.  They now believe that the software functionality is nearly complete.  However, before implementing the system for all Yeshiva students, a pilot run of the system is planned for the upcoming spring semester.  “We are very excited for this new system, but I have seen institutions introduce untested software prematurely out of excitement, and that software has crashed,” asserted Amy Rotheim Sullivan, Associate Director of Enrollment Management. “We don’t want to throw something up with glitches.”

Therefore, for the spring 2003 semester, the online registration software will first be tested using a small group of students.  As a pilot project, some selected students from the Benjamin N. Cordozo School of Law, as well as a small set of designated students on an undergraduate level, will participate in the online registration program. If this test is successful, this registration system will then be employed for all Yeshiva students.  “John Fisher [Director of Enrollment Management] and I were in Columbia University when this system went up, and we witnessed its success…we are eager to see it up and running here in Yeshiva,” commented Sullivan.

The software that will enable Yeshiva to create this new registration system will also create new and innovative developments for students.  Banner, as the program is commonly referred to, is currently in the process of becoming web-enabled.  Once fully functional, this Banner system will serve Yeshiva on many levels. 

Although the present method of registration is long and tedious, it does possess certain advantages that web registration would seemingly lack.  One of its advantages is the direction of academic advisors, whose primary roles are to ensure that students prudently register for the various requirements necessary for graduation.  “Online registration was designed for large community schools where advisement isn’t as personal. Although it is convenient, we don’t want to detract from the personal edge of Yeshiva College,” said Sullivan.  Therefore, Web Banner designers will have to work diligently with academic advisors to overcome this dilemma and attempt to maintain a comparable level of advisement. 

Another function of Web Banner is a “faculty module.” This module enables teachers to view class rosters, schedules, and enter student grades via the Internet. “This system is ideal for foreign travelers,” noted Sullivan.  “For teachers who leave the country immediately after finals, this system enables them to enter grades over the Internet.  This is beneficial to the students as well, for they receive their grades much quicker than they normally would have earlier.”

In fact, this aspect of the Web Banner has already undergone its first assessment. Recently, Yeshiva faculty members met with the Web Banner developers to evaluate the faculty module’s various components, and according to Sullivan, the meeting went “very, very smoothly.”

The third major function of Web Banner concerns student finances. This facet of the software would enable students to view financial status, perform credit card payments, and complete financial aid applications online.  “Whatever a student would be able to accomplish by walking into the financial office, one would be able to do online,” observed Sullivan.

However, this aspect of the Web project must be altered, as it also detracts from Yeshiva’s personal edge of personal assistance. “The Office of Student Finance just hired two new people and they have a great staff overall and there is something to be said for receiving personalized assistance,” said Sullivan.

Nevertheless, students are eager for this component of the Web Banner. “I was once on line behind a girl who, after hours of waiting, finally reached the front of the line to register, only to be informed she could not register because she was two dollars and change short on her financial payments, so she had to go all the way to the financial office and start the entire process over again,” remarked one Stern College for Women alumnus.  This new system would avoid both the financial hassle of such an incident as well as the long lines for course registration.

As Yeshiva College junior Ephraim Stern recalled, “I have heard many disaster stories from other students about the YU registration process, and I have personally stood for hours on long lines in order to register.  I can’t wait to be able to register from my own computer without the hassle that has been present in the past.”

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