dec (registrars)

During this meeting our meeting was focused on the course guide and how to make better. The current hope is that professors will be able to provide a better description of the course. Ideas to do this include: providing a separate instructor description section, putting a syllabus in class description (practical issues here), allowing the professors to put show major topics, allowing professors to tag key words in their classes so the class will show up when the words are searched (ex: a professor identify key words so students can search for key words rather have to know which classes do certain things). Other ways to make course guide better: eliminate abbreviations and ambiguous icons, better knowledge of how it works around campus, better information about requirements and qualifying classes. The ultimate goal is shift the class search process by students completely away from student center because of student centers problem, and to eliminate the confusion of classes and requirements. There is opposition from advisors at the university because they fear kids will no longer come to them if the complicating mess of requirements and hard to find information is eliminated. They fear the access needed access will decrease the number of students they see (valid) and then very few students will reap the other (real)  benefits of seeing an advisor.

november meeting

During the november meeting we looked at the student. The focus was on getting putting, “help,” information in a place where people who need it will look, and in a format that is straight forward and easy to find the desired information. The many problems with student center were brought up, and the people who manage the system are very aware of the problems. Unfortunately, the programmers and system managers have their hands tied by the system. A company has provided the university with a template for the student center that allows for customization; however, upgrades often delete or break these customization causing more problems. After understanding that certain problems were out of the scope of this committee, we moved to the solution: providing information. Currently, there is a bunch of technical information in one PDF and only a couple of paragraphs are relevant to the many situations explained in this six page document (ex: how to change a class to honors in student center). The idea originally presented to us was an icon that would hyperlink to the corresponding information (if one is looking for help with how to swap classes, they click on the swap class tab and then they will see an icon on the page up at the top). We didn’t really think this would make the information more accessible. I feel the best idea was to create a help tab with a search bar or a search bar on the home page. This search bar is similar to the way Microsoft office provides.

Office of the Registrar Student Advisory Board, 12/3/10

The Office of the Registrar Student Advisory Board met last Friday, December 3rd. The meeting began with a brief discussion which reviewed the implementation of the new wait list feature during Spring course enrollment. There was a general consensus that while there was some confusion among students regarding the new feature, that it was generally viewed as an improvement over the previous system.

The Registrar’s Office then provided the Board with a review of their plan to upgrade course guide through the integration of Instructor Provided Content.

Instructor-Provided Content

This would address the issue that may students have with the current course guide, which often features very brief, vague course descriptions, which may very well be inaccurate or out of date.

Instead, the course guide would feature a course description which was actually written by the professor, to provide a more accurate description of course subjects.

The faculty would also provide a set of keywords to describe the course, making it simpler for students to search for courses.

The Student Board also discussed some other potential information to make available:

• Textbook requirements
• Specific “skills” which the course would develop
• If possible, a course syllabus

The Registrar’s Office informed us that some of this information was already available, through the small icons which appear in course guide. (e.g. the small textbook icon, ect…)

Many members of the student board agreed that these icons were easily ignored, and many students may not use them. We agreed that there should be an effort to make existing information and any expansion to course guide easily available and clearly integrated, without creating clutter.

Search Functionality

Additionally, there are plans to improve the current search functionality of course guide, in order to make the system less specific and more user-friendly. Specific measures to improve this would include the ability to search in English words, rather than just abbreviations, and the use of keywords to describe classes.

Course Planner Improvements

There is also a plan underway to integrate DARS and specific course lists with the planner function in course guide. This would make it possible for students to see which courses will be required for a specific major, and to plan accordingly, without having to cross-reference course guide with a separate course list or DARS printout.

This led to a discussion of the already-existing planner function. While it was implemented at the beginning of the semester, there was agreement that the function is largely unknown, and that there is a need to advertise its utility to the student body. There was discussion of working with SOAR or DOIT to teach students about course guide and student center features during each group’s respective, mandatory session for incoming freshmen.

Course Guide Accessibility

Finally, there was a brief talk about some of the archaic symbols and abbreviations currently used in course descriptions, and how, with improvements in technology, it is now possible to use full words, rather than abbreviations and symbols, to provide information on courses and prerequisites.

The honors system was held up as an example of something which is needlessly complicated, as the various symbols used to describe honors courses can easily be replaced by full words and specific search options.

It was agreed that there needs to be cooperation from the Advisors on campus in order to make course guide more accessible to students.

This was the last meeting of the Advisory Board until next semester. If you have any input on our discussion from last week, about your experience with course enrollment for spring, or any other thoughts in general, please comment below.

-Ian Gorecki

Office of the Registrar- hiring a new Registrar!

Join Us for University Registrar Candidate Forums November 15, 17, 18, and 22

The Division of Enrollment Management at UW-Madison is in the process of hiring a new University Registrar. This member of our campus community will play an important role in collaborating across campus to provide long-term positive educational outcomes for students, and will position the Office of the Registrar to take advantage of technology for the delivery of service, management of records and for access to and ensuring security of information.

I invite you to join us as we meet the four candidates this month. An open forum with each of the finalists will be hosted during their campus visits.  We are inviting all members of the campus community to attend the forums and share their thoughts about the candidates by offering feedback.

During each session, the candidates will introduce themselves and give an overview of their career.  They will then share their vision for the role of the registrar’s office at a large, decentralized university over the next five years, and how their  experience, leadership style, and personal philosophy will help the University of Wisconsin’s Office of the Registrar excel in that role.  The session will also include an opportunity to ask the candidates questions and to hear their responses.

University Registrar Campus Forums are scheduled as follows:

Monday, November 15, 9:00-9:45 a.m., 1195 Grainger Hall

Tammy L. Aagard

University Registrar and Interim Director of Student Financial Aid, University of Wyoming

Wednesday, November 17, 10:00-10:45 a.m., 1195 Grainger Hall

Larry Lockwood

Assistant Provost and University Registrar, University of Iowa

Thursday, November 18, 1:00-1:45 p.m., Wisconsin Idea Room, Education Building

Heather A. Chermak

Associate Registrar, University of Idaho

Monday, November 22, 11:00-11:45 a.m., 2280 Grainger Hall

Scott T. Owczarek

Associate Registrar, Michigan State University

Candidate curriculum vitae are available at:

https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/groups/Registrar_Search_and_Screen/Finalist Curricula Vitae (NetID and password are required to access this through the UW portal in My WebSpace).  A copy of the Position Vacancy Listing for the University Registrar position is available at:  http://www.ohr.wisc.edu/pvl/pv_065088.html

I encourage your attendance at the forums, and welcome your feedback.  Feedback and comments can be share using the simple survey at:  http://tinyurl.com/UW-Madison-Registrar-Feedback

I hope you will make the time to participate in the process as we select the next University Registrar.  We’d like to reach as many campus colleagues as possible so please feel free to forward this invitation to others.  Please accept my apologies if you receive this invitation more than once.

Office of the Registrar Student Advisory Board

The Office of the Registrar Student Advisory Board meet for the first time last Friday, October 29th.

The meeting began with a recap of subjects which had been reviewed last year followed by a brief outline of the topics which the board will address over the coming year, including:

-Automatic Wait List Functionality

-Mobile Phone Applications

-Schedule Builder: a revamped scheduling tool which will be incorporated into the course guide

-This proposed upgrade will receive much more attention in the spring semester

-DARS: major changes are planned, and the DARS system will be overhauled

-These changes will most likely occur sometime between December and February

The meeting then moved on to our main topic of discussion: the improved wait list function which will be available for the upcoming spring course registration.

Wait List Changes:

The way in which students now enter wait lists for courses has been radically altered from previous years. Most of the aspects of wait listing are now easily available directly from the Student Center. Major changes include:

• Courses which have a wait list available now feature a yellow triangle above them when viewed in Student Center
• Students can check that they would like to be placed on the wait list for a course directly from Student Center, without the need to contact the department.
• Once a student has selected a wait listed course and enrolled in the wait list, that course will appear in his Student Center Schedule
• That same schedule has been consolidated, so that now wish list, wait list, and enrolled courses all appear in the same calendar
• If a student receives an offer to enroll, they will be given the choice to “add” or “swap” the course from their Student Center account
• As of right now, over 300 courses are using the new system.

We also reviewed some of the limitations of the new system.

• Students may still enroll in up to 18 credits worth of courses, and an additional 12 credits of wait listed courses
• Students can view how many spots there are on the wait list, but may not see how many others have already signed up
• Individual departments are still responsible for accepting students on the wait list, so having the first position on a wait list does not guarantee that one will receive an invitation to enroll if a spot opens.
• Section changes will not be accommodated in the initial roll out

This was followed by a brief discussion, where the students largely expressed satisfaction with the new system. There was a general consensus that the new system was an improvement over the previous, department-based, wait list system. However, the board expressed concerns that for some students, especially foreign language students, a 12-credit maximum for wait listed courses may be too constricting. There was a great deal of interest in expanding to an 18-credit maximum, however, the Office of the Registrar advisors informed the board that the faculty wait list committee had strongly opposed such an idea. The meeting concluded by emphasizing The importance of spreading awareness of the changes to student center, and that an email will be sent to the student body this Tuesday to help avoid confusion during enrollment.

To see the new system in action for yourself, please review this demo:

http://registrar.wisc.edu/isis_helpdocs/enrollment_demos/V90WaitList/V90WaitList.htm

-Ian Gorecki