More than six months after the Banner registration and course directory system debuted, most students say they still prefer to use the student-created Web site, Mocha, according to a poll conducted last week by the Undergraduate Council of Students.
The poll, which was available through MyCourses last week from Tuesday through Thursday, covered a range of topics including advising, student activities funding, University services and course registration.
UCS Communications Chair Gabe Kussin '09, who oversaw the poll, said he was surprised at the level of dissatisfaction with advising among the poll's respondents. "It's something I hope we look at over the coming semester," he said.
Student responses about Banner and Mocha use were also of interest, Kussin said. "Students are overwhelmingly in favor of Mocha and (in favor of) more support when it comes to Banner," he said. The majority of respondents, 74.1 percent, were "very satisfied" with Mocha, but only 11.3 percent of respondents were very satisfied with registration through Banner, according to the poll results.
One question about Banner asked students what "most immediate change" to Banner they would want to see implemented. The choices were "standardization of course restriction override system," "layout/design," "elimination of course restrictions," "better accessibility to course descriptions," "no opinion" or "no changes necessary." Just over 29 percent of respondents said they would like more accessible course descriptions.
Eliminating course restrictions was the second most popular choice, selected by 22.8 percent of poll respondents. When asked "which of the following optional, Banner restrictions used by professors concerns you most?" 49.7 percent of respondents expressed concern about course capping during registration.
With regards to registration, 68.4 percent of students who responded to the poll said they would like to see a printed course announcement bulletin, whereas 22 percent said they would not be interested in one.
Though there were originally 39 questions, two questions were thrown out and not counted in the official results due to "typographical errors or omission of certain answers," Kussin said.
One of the discarded questions asked students to indicate whether they receive e-mail on their phone. "By accident I left out the 'no' option," he said.
The other trashed question pertained to the student activities fee. It was supposed to ask, "Do you believe the Undergraduate Council of Students should assess the student activities fee?" but it instead asked if the council should access the fee.
While that question specifically concerning the student activities fee was ultimately rejected, a question asking "Would you support a portion of this year's tuition increase being put toward student activities?" prompted 61.9 percent of respondents to reply they would support it, whereas 22.4 percent said they would not.
The poll also asked students if they felt student activities were adequately funded, 43.9 percent responded they did not think student activities were adequately funded, 29.1 said that they think there is sufficient funding and 21.5 percent had no opinion on the matter.
Kussin said he is pleased with how the poll turned out. "We worked very hard on it as an e-board and as UCS," he said.
The UCS poll was unscientific - all undergraduates had access to the survey on MyCourses, and 978 of them completed the survey. Last spring, 1,327 students completed UCS' online poll. UCS did not release any information about the demographic breakdown of the sample population.
