Online registration to start in April

Norwich plans to switch to an online registration system by next April, according to the Registrar's Office.

Registrar Linda Yeomans said that Norwich has been trying to shift to Web registration for a while now. The spring of 2007 was the first time online registration was attempted.

"There was a lot of rebuilding that needed to be done inside of Banner Web for Web registration to work," Yeomans said.

The Registrar's Office has been working out the kinks in the program since 2007 and this past November, a handful of students were selected to test-drive online registration. According to Yeomans and the students, the experiment went well.

"It went so much smoother. I was actually surprised at how simple it was to register online," said Sarah Voss, 20, a junior criminal justice major from Vernon, Conn. "It went extremely fast."

According to Meghan Kennedy, 19, a sophomore political science major from Lowell, Mass., not having to wait in long lines is reason enough for the university to switch to online registration. "It took me less than five minutes to register once I was logged in," Kennedy said.

Voss agrees that the process is much faster, and that it would be easier on the staff in the Registrar's Office. They would not be responsible for registering hundreds of students, they would only have to worry about dealing with any difficulties a student may run into.

When students log in to register for classes, they will enter the CRN number for the courses they need and click submit.

The only problems students faced while registering online was the restrictions that were put on some classes.

"One of the classes I needed to take was blocked because it was a 100 level class, freshmen only. Once I called my advisor she fixed the problem right away," Kennedy said.

According to Voss, other upperclassman could not get into classes they needed to take to meet the requirements for their major. These students were worried that online registration would increase these types of problems.

"The problems experienced by upperclassman are not Web registration problems, they are problems with registration in general," Yeomans said. When the university makes the shift to Web registration, times will be organized by class year. "Each class level will have two days to register with seniors going first," Yeomans said.

If students are worried that a class they need is filling up, they can begin registering at midnight on the day their class is assigned. This will give a head start to those who are willing to stay up late, or get up early to register.

Some students suggested other improvements. "I wish that when an error message pops up saying you can't register for the class that it would give you the reason why. Such as the class is full or restricted to freshmen only," Voss said.

After the last test the Registrar's Office said all the glitches have been worked out. "Mechanically, Web registration went completely smooth, so next April we will have our whole campus on Web registration," Yeomans said.