Mock registration, a week-long process designed to ensure the smooth implementation of Banner's online course registration module, began Monday as students and professors tested the system.
Members of the Undergraduate Council of Students, Meiklejohn peer advisers and various professors were given scripts that instructed them to enter and mis-enter data and then report Banner's response.
"The process is going smoothly so far," said Lisa Mather, associate registrar for registration services and organizer of the mock registration program. "But we have a whole week planned, so we'll see how things turn out."
Participants Monday began the pre-registration phase, which was staggered by semester level and will continue today until registration closes at 10:00 a.m. A "summer" will last from 10 a.m to noon today. A mock Orientation, allowing only those playing the roles of freshmen, transfer students and new graduate students to register, will last from noon to 4 p.m.
"The idea is to fit the entire semester and more into one week," said Thomas Doeppner, associate research professor of computer science and a participant in the program.
Kyle Evans '08 was the first registrant Monday and had to register for five courses, including one requiring written permission.
"I got into the four classes without any problems, but then Banner wouldn't let me get into an English course because it was 'written permission required,' " she said. "A professor logged in to give me the override, and I got in."
Evans said her experience with Banner was positive.
"I was concerned that it would be difficult to use, but the user interface is very similar to WebCT, which everyone is used to using," she said. "It's like three clicks, and then you're done."
A concern frequently raised by students has been the process of receiving restriction overrides from professors, but Doeppner said the process is very simple from a professor's point of view.
"Granting the overrides was pretty simple," he said. "Anybody who uses the Web shouldn't have a problem."
Doeppner also said Banner's user interface - another hotly debated feature - wasn't a problem for him.
"I had some minor concerns coming in, but the user interface was fine," he said. "Each time you did something, the system made sure it was the thing you wanted to do."
Kaitlin Lemei '07.5 also participated in the mock registration program, playing the role of a senior planning to live off campus. "According to my script, I hadn't provided my new address information, so I couldn't register for classes," she said. "But once I did, I was able to register."
But Lemei ran into a problem when she tried to access Banner from Miriam Hospital, where she works.
"I couldn't log on through the link that they gave me," she said. "Both Internet Explorer and Mozilla would time out before I was able to connect."
Mather said she and her team were aware of the bug and received notification from Lemei and others with the same problem.
"A bunch of people off campus were having some trouble accessing Banner," she said. "We're working to fix it."
But one student who was testing the system from overseas was able to log on without a problem, Mather said.
Gordon Pels '08 is currently spending a semester in Paris and offered to test Banner remotely. "Registering itself is very fast and easy," Pels wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
But Pels said he felt the interface could be circuitous at times.
"You almost always have to return to the main menu to do anything," he wrote.
Lemei, a lab consultant supervisor for the Help Desk and a Meiklejohn peer adviser, said she was pleased with Banner's interface but foresees a few problems for those unfamiliar with it.
"The menus on Banner could be a little more streamlined, but for the most part, I didn't have trouble negotiating them," she said. "I would definitely advise freshmen to poke around in Banner before registering."
The pre-registration period is just the beginning of the mock registration process. All of Wednesday will be spent simulating shopping period, Thursday will simulate the third and fourth weeks of classes - when students can no longer add a course but can drop courses and change their grade options - and Friday, the last day of mock registration, will simulate registration after the fourth week of classes, when students can drop courses but are no longer able to change grade options.
"Our staff has used the system extensively," Mather said. "So we expect the process to go fairly smoothly."
