The new course registration system proposal went public on DePauw's website Monday evening. A dozen students joined Registrar Ken Kirkpatrick for an open forum about the highly anticipated system Tuesday afternoon.
"We've been looking at different systems for a long time now, since I've been Registrar actually," Kirkpatrick said.
Kirkpatrick described the current system as a batch system, meaning students submit a group of primary courses and alternatives. The system then uses those requests and pre-set priority conditions to place them in classes.
Kirkpatrick said the strength of the current system is that it allows for a lot of control over priorities during course registration. However, the downside is the system lacks transparency for students to see why or why not they end up enrolled in the courses they request. Kirkpatrick called it "a black box" system.
The proposed system is instead a direct enrollment system comprised of three phases: advising and enrollment preparation, priority registration and open enrollment.
"It will basically take the black box out of [the registration process]," Kirkpatrick said. "With this kind of system, you should know either at the time of registration or shortly after why you didn't get into a course if you don't get in one that you wanted."
Senior Casie Sambo learned about the proposal from a student government email sent on Oct. 29 to organizations around campus.
"There's nothing worse than getting your schedule back and realizing you only got half the classes you need," Sambo said. "So I think that we should do it, let's give a new system a try."
During the advising and enrollment preparation phase of course registration, students will have around two weeks to assemble a course watch list - a sort of "shopping cart for registration," Kirkpatrick said. During this time, the system will check student eligibility in order for courses to be added to the watch list. Eligibility for specific courses will continue to be based on class standing, placement test results, major, program affiliation and prerequisites.
During this first phase, if a student tries to add a course to the course watch and the system declares one ineligible, there will be an option to enter an eligibility code, which students can get from the department chair or course instructor. If the issue of eligibility is due to a student's class standing, then a student can request a registration standing exception from the Registrar's Office, which will then grant them the necessary eligibility code.
"An eligibility code is not the same as the current system's SPAC code," Kirkpatrick said. "It will not get you into the course. It will just let you try to get into the course during the priority phase."
Students will be able to add as many courses as they want to their course watch during this time, and Kirkpatrick is working to figure out a way for students to rank their chosen courses visually on the list.
After completing the course watch, students will meet with their advisor to look over the selections and approve the list. Then students will be given an advisor confirmation code, which will be necessary in order to enroll in courses during phase two.
During the second phase of new process, priority registration, students will directly enroll into open courses online starting at a set time. The system will check student's choices for course conflicts and availability and would allow students to add and drop courses all day long. Kirkpatrick hopes to figure out a way to make the number of currently enrolled students in a course and its limit visible so that students can take a course's popularity into account while enrolling.
The third and final phase, open enrollment, will be similar to the current course adjustment system where students can add or drop courses. As far as wait lists are concerned, Kirkpatrick described them as a feature still being developed. The current plan is that during the enrollment phase, if a student does not get into a requested course, students will be able to pick an option to be added to the course's open wait list. Additionally, students will be able to explain why they requested a course so that the professor can make effective decisions about who to let in.
Kirkpatrick is the first to admit that there are still many questions that need to be answered before a new system can go into effect.
"We need to figure out what the [system and internet] capacity is in the living units particularly," he said. "There's an art to that."
Other questions remain about when system will open, how enrollment will be staggered, how quickly the system can process requests and whether students will slot their entire schedule at one time or not.
DePauw faculty has also been informed about the new system proposal. Fred Soster, head of the Committee on Academic Policy and Planning (CAPP) described the proposed new system as "complicated" and is not sure that it will solve current problems. He explained that most students and faculty do not want to take morning classes, so most class times fall in the middle of the day. With most classes occuring at the same time, not all students can get into the courses they need.
Kirkpatrick said the new system would reward students who are responsible.
"I think the current system rewards people who are well prepared," he said "This system will have an equal reward if you prepare well, and a pretty heavy penalty if you don't, as it should be."
Even though the proposal has gone public, Kirkpatrick is still trying to get student feedback about it. Mark Fadel, DePauw Student Government vice president, has presented the proposal to the Multicultural Greek Council Student Senate and the International Student Association and said that so far it has been well received.
Both Fadel and Kirkpatrick urge students to learn more about the logistics behind the new system by accessing the proposal on the DePauw website under the Registrar section.
"It's not a done deal that this [new course registration system] is going to happen," Kirkpatrick said at the tail end of the forum. "So what do you guys think?"