THE NEW Internet on-line registration system introduced by the University of the West Indies (UWI) for the new academic year has been hit by several glitches which the Mona administration says it is working feverishly to iron out.
Several students complained last week that the new system had complicated the registration process instead of making it easier as declared by the Mona administration.
Students told The Gleaner that the system, which allows them to register and receive approval for courses as well as obtain financial clearance via the Internet, left them with many unanswered questions. They also had new worries as they had to wait for longer than the promised 24 hours to find out whether or not their courses had been approved by the Deans of their faculties. Students also claimed that they had no way of identifying whether their selected courses were oversubscribed.
"It's difficult because I am a full-time student switching to part-time and now I'm worried that I will find that the courses are full or that I don't have the necessary pre-requisites and co-requisites to do the courses," said third year student, S. Alecia Jones. Another third year student agreed.
She said she had registered on-line since last Monday and submitted the form to the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Education. Yet, she was unable to tell whether or not the courses were approved or if she had registered for courses which were already oversubscribed when she checked on Friday.
"And now on Monday morning, I will still have to join a long line," she said. Official registration begins today, August 28.
In acknowledging the glitches, Campus Registrar G. Anthony Falloon explained that the current slow response to course submissions from students was due to problems with the technology itself and the fact that some staff members were themselves becoming familiar with the system.
"The staff themselves are new to the process. In addition, persons have been away on leave and are just coming back and are now trying to get the hang of things," Mr. Falloon stated. He added that the new system was also experiencing technical difficulties and so data entered by students were being processed by the server being used at slower rate than was expected . Since then, the registrar explained, information was being filtered through different servers.
Referring to student complaints about oversubscribed courses, the registrar noted that the system was designed to check course selections against criteria such as pre-requisites, credit limits and quotas. With regard to the latter, Mr. Falloon pointed out that if a course was full then the computer will reject registration for those courses. He however said that students can still request permission to do the course via the university's website. This would be routed via the lecturer of the particular courses who would then respond by sending a memo to the student via the Internet.
Students were also assured that individuals with training in computer technology would be placed at designated areas to assist students who were not computer literate.
The campus registrar remained adamant that no lines would be necessary because most of the processes that had necessitated long lines were being done electronically. "Some 400 computers, which will be available to students, will be distributed to several locations. Within the sphere of the computers, we are expecting that students won't have to join lines," Mr. Falloon said. Uunder the new system, staff would also be equipped with computers and would give their responses over the Internet so there would be limited face-to-face contact, he said. This had been the cause of the long lines, he said.
