Catalog and Schedule - which allow students to search for courses and provide details about classes such as descriptions, meeting times and professors - were criticized for their impracticality and lack of visual appeal in a March 21 resolution passed by the Undergraduate Council of Students. The resolution, coming just two days after the applications were unveiled, described the new systems as "disruptive and counterintuitive" and stated that the redundancy and inefficiency of the coupled databases threaten the success of Brown's open curriculum.
The resolution also called for the reprinting of the Course Announcement Bulletin, which was discontinued in favor of a shorter, newsletter-styled Brown Course Listing that was distributed to students' mailboxes yesterday.
"This has been a gross miscalculation on the part of the administration," said Stefan Smith '09, UCS at-large representative and a co-sponsor of the resolution. "It's one of the most impractical applications I've seen on the (Brown) Web site."
Many students who have used the systems echoed Smith's sentiments and emphasized the inefficiency of the two applications.
"Everything's in one big list, and it's hard to differentiate between classes," said Courtney Pellechi '08. "It's hard to tell what and when things are."
"The information isn't in one easy place," said Megan Schmidt '08.5. "For all the money they spent on it, it's bad."
But most students interviewed by The Herald said they had little or no experience with Banner's search applications and said they thought the average student isn't too worried about Banner's aesthetics.
"I think it's a bad decision to protest Banner," said Nathanael Horton '09.5. "I'm glad that UCS listens to the student body - that's their function - but their decision should have been to support the administration."
"Too much noise is being made about all of this," said Jon Lin '08. "People are looking at it almost as a civil rights movement, but it has been implemented at other Ivy League schools and hasn't been a problem."
Lin said he thinks students are led to believe that Banner will bring chaos to the University by those with the loudest voices and the strongest opinions, while the average Brown student is more moderate.
"Not many people actually care that much," he said. "But from what they hear from the e-mails and UCS, they can get scared."
Both Lin and Horton said they hadn't yet tested out the new search applications.
Associate Provost Nancy Dunbar, who leads the Banner project, said she and her team were listening to student opinion but will be unable to make any changes to the Catalog and Schedule in the coming weeks.
"Our task in the project was to implement Banner, and we implemented Catalog and Schedule as they were built. We were successful in that task," Dunbar said. "Is that the system we think will be stable in the next five or 10 years? Of course not. But it's the starting point."
Dunbar wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that the decision not to print the CAB will stand, as it was made months ago and cannot be changed in time for pre-registration.
"My efforts in April will be focused on helping students and faculty use Banner, not on changing it," she wrote.
Design issues were also addressed by Associate Registrar for Registration Services Lisa Mather, who ran the mock registration program last month to identify bugs in Banner. Mather issued a written response to feedback from participants in the program in an e-mail to mock-registration participants.
"Part of the reason that Banner looks the way it does is because Banner must be in compliance with federal regulations concerning handicap accessibility," she wrote. "In this case, it means that Banner screens must be able to be read by optical readers for those who are visually impaired."
Nearly all students interviewed by The Herald said they would use Mocha, the recently updated student-run alternative to Catalog and Schedule, for their course shopping and preparation for pre-registration.
"As long as there's Mocha, we'll be fine," Pellechi said.
Dunbar also mentioned Mocha as a useful complement to Catalog and Schedule.
"We feel that the implementation of Catalog and Schedule was successful, but Mocha is certainly a useful tool for students," Dunbar said. "I'm very glad it's there."
