The Pre-Registration Process

We all know that registration is not working the way it should.  What do we do about it?  Until now, we have done little.  The experiences and feedback from the campus community after this fall pre-registration, led us, a group of folks from Academic Affairs and Information Technologies, to look at how to improve this process. 
We sat down and looked at the hard data and talked about what we could change.  We brought our initial recommendations to the students, faculty and staff and received a ton of feedback, questions, and other suggestions to try. Below you will see everything we have been able to implement for the next round of pre-registration.  The input from every constituent was very helpful and made development fairly easy.

What isn’t working?

• We know that the WebAdvisor online registration system cannot handle the first day of Major/Minor pre-registration
• We know that the WebAdvisor online registration system cannot handle the last day of General Registration

Both situations created long lines at the Registrar’s Office, resulting in some students feeling the need to camp out and others to miss class.

What does the data tell us from Fall 2010?

• 3,195 students tried to register the first morning of Major/Minor pre-registration
• 605 of those students were attempting to register for the first time
• Between 8am-9am 12 registrations were processed online; 144 were processed at the Registrar’s Office
• Between 11am-12pm 329 registrations were process online; 149 were processed at the Registrar’s Office
• The wireless access point outside the Financial Aid office was the highest hit port in the Administration Building.  It had 83 connections at its peak.  Each access point can handle hundreds of connections at one time.
• The number of WebAdvisor ‘spots’ we have available at one time is 1,000 (for students, faculty and staff)
• We can track who accesses WebAdvisor when and how many times.  There were two students with 30 WebAdvisor windows open on their laptops the first morning of pre-registration.  Those two students were taking 60 out of the 1000 spots.

Let’s go over the NEW process:
In order for the process to work, we all need to work together.  Now that we know the limit of online access spots is 1,000 at one time, we can work to minimize the number of times we, as a campus, exceed that.

• We have asked all departments and advisors to begin advising at least two weeks prior to the pre-registration dates, thus freeing up spots during pre-registration for just that, registration
• Every time anyone goes into to WebAdvisor, a spot is taken.  If we are able to minimize the spots take for course look-up and running a Degree Audit, we are allowing more spots to be available for students to register
• We have created a static list of courses (with days, times, professors and LASC designation) in a website separate from WebAdvisor so course lookup and prep can still take place, but not utilize registration spots.  This list is not real time.  It will update twice a day (4am and 4pm)
• We have created new online resources in WebAdvisor for students.  Please see the How To Sheets on this site
  Options include: emailing your advisor(s) right from WebAdvisor, Pre-bundling courses for a quicker registration. Express Registration, Ability to search for classes by day, night, open, or closed
• We have broken down Major/Minor registration to mimic general registration, according to the number of completed credits
• We have broken down both Major/Minor and General Registration into three registration blocks by the number of completed credits
• We are opening Web registration 2 hours earlier for each group, compared to when the Registrar’s Office will register students
  See calendar for more details
• Each Pre-registration ticket will outline a student's assigned time, listing both the Web registration time and the Registrar’s approved time
• All offices on the first floor of the Administration Building will be open until 5pm on the Fridays during the two week pre-registration time

What do STUDENTS need to do to help this process work?

• Pay attention to dates
• Prep yourself-take care of holds, make your list of primary and alternate courses early, see your advisor prior to the two week registration process
• Be familiar with your Degree Audit and bring a copy with you to your advising appointment.
• Utilize WebAdvisor to register and trust that the system will work
• Only open one WebAdvisor window so 999 other folks can get into WebAdvisor as well

What do FACULTY and STAFF Advisors need to do to help this process work?

• Schedule advising appointments starting two weeks prior to the first day of Major/Minor pre-registration
• Be familiar with Degree Audit and where each advisee is in their program
• Minimize your access to WebAdvisor during the two week pre-registration process  
• Each time we are in WebAdvisor during the two week time, we are taking away a potential registration spot for a student

What WE commit to do?

• Evaluate and continuously work on improving the entire pre-registration process