The Observer, November 18, 2005
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11
Two-year overhaul planned for SOLAR
Today marks the final day for senior registration, which means that most of those students will have used Student On-Line Academic Registration (SOLAR) for the last time. Over the years, SOLAR has come under fire for a few different reasons: the small student capacity despite the growing student body and the outdated, slow, and inefficient Opal client.
Changes to the current system, however, will not appear for at least another two and a half years, according to director of application services – a division of ITS – Colleen Nagy.
"The software is so old and out of date that, unless we upgrade the entire operating system, to fix it right we have to implement an entirely new student system," said Nagy.
At this time, the only thing that stands in the way of implementing the two-year overhaul of the current system is money. Enterprise Application Services, which works directly with the Office of the Registrar and Undergraduate Studies, is currently requesting financial backing from the university. The plan is to move students out of SOLAR and into a similar but more user-friendly program through the PeopleSoft system. PeopleSoft, which is the current Case payroll system, would be used for registration in the same way as SOLAR but wouldn't require users to download any additional software.
According to Nagy, the new system would have "the same look, feel, and architecture" as the old system, but any cosmetic changes made would be left to the discretion of the Office of the Registrar and Undergraduate Studies. Once the economics behind the overhaul are sorted out, the plan should move forward providing a more functional system for the students of Case.
"What students need to know is that we are here to serve them," said Nagy, "Our time is spent trying to figure out ways of fixing things and making things better for students."
The temporary solution to relieving the pressure of the limited number of slots has been to divide each class in half by last name, and assign specific days for those students to register. This new system has the last students registering on Dec. 2 of this year. However, this also has some students worried.
Said senior Melissa Kerwood, "The letter system causes problems, because those students left waiting are stressed out, wondering if their required classes will fill up before they even get the chance to register."
Students are also attempting to hold their own weight by contributing ideas and new programs to the registration process. Scheduler Jones visualizes students' schedules and allows them to share them with other students. Another program, which is currently a work-in-progress, will soon be available for student use: schedule.case.edu.
The program, designed by Matthew Crowley and Alexander Boruz as a supplement to SOLAR, will offer auto-registration for classes through SOLAR and more extensive class descriptions, class evaluations, and professor evaluations (including a direct link to ratemyprofessors.com). The program will provide an explicit degree analysis by major, allowing students to track their progress beyond the scope of the university-provided degree progress report.
According to students, these features would be a welcome addition to the current registration system.
"Current professor evaluations are mostly unhelpful. I usually use other friends' feedback. When you using the Case system, you usually end up with ratings for a professor who isn't teaching anymore," said senior Stephen Britcher.
Kerwood also agrees with this assessment of the ratings available as well as the class descriptions made available to students, "Oftentimes I read the descriptions and don't find out what the classes actually are until I get there. I usually end up dropping the class and having to change my whole schedule around."
While the program isn't quite ready for use by students, a beta version of the Internet-based system will be available on Dec. 9.
Said Crowley, "We began the program for a class, and once the class is over we hope to open it up for any interested students on campus to help with the development."
The system is an attempt to alleviate any issues with SOLAR's current setup and to simplify the registration process.
"We hope that this program will make scheduling a lot less of a burden for students. They shouldn't have to waste all their time planning for their classes," said Crowley.
As of now, the system has no official university endorsement, which Crowley hopes will come with the project's completion next spring; schedule.case.edu is expected to be up and running for Fall 2006 registration.
So as administrative changes are made in the scheduling system, students have and will continue to do what is in their power to ease the way for their peers.
