OneStart posing problems

Junior Steve Zendel spent more than 30 minutes registering for fall semester classes -- double the time from past semesters. As a business major going into his last year of college, Zendel thought every aspect of senior year would be a breeze.\nThat was until he used OneStart -- IU's new, internally-designed Web portal and gateway to the registration process through the new Student Information System.\n"The system wouldn't let me register until I knew my course numbers and had them practically memorized," Zendel said.\nLike many other students, Zendel turned to the Office of the Registrar to address his complaints with the new system.\nMary Beth Myers, associate registrar and manager of enrollment services, said the new registration support telephone center receives approximately 150 calls per day. She said the most frequent problems employees hear are those dealing with scheduling-related component classes, such as pairing a lecture with a discussion or lab.\nFor example, if a class has one lecture and 10 discussions, only the discussion classes can be selected for enrollment. If a student tries to enter the class number of the 'non-enrollment' component, they receive an error message.\n"There is a level of frustration or anxiety because many things are very new," Myers said. "Once we walk a student through the process, it becomes clear. But since it is so different from RegWeb, (problems like these) are common stumbling blocks."\nBecause registration is just one portion of OneStart, other complaints about the system go directly to the University Information Technology Services Support Center.\nDespite the number of student complaints made to the Office of the Registrar, Deputy Communications Officer Christine Fitzpatrick said UITS data shows no significant increase in reported problems for OneStart in the last two weeks.\nDennis Gillespie, UITS support center manager, said the facility received 520 contacts, including phone calls, e-mails and walk-ins April 5, the first day of fall registration.\nGillespie attributed the slightly high volume of contacts to system defaults such as the Indiana timezone being set incorrectly to main workstations.\n"Students could not register during their specified time," Gillespie said. "Until the problem was fixed with diagnostic tools, we had a lot of troubleshooting." \nMyers said students can voice their problems with registration through self-service feedback by e-mailing, calling or visiting the Office of the Registrar in Franklin Hall, Room 101. \n"We have actually made several changes as a result of student feedback," Myers said. "One of the most recent is that there is now a version of the schedule of classes on our Registrar homepage that looks amazingly similar to the old INSITE version so that students may 'shop' more easily for classes."\nDuring the remainder of registration, Gillespie said he encourages students, faculty and staff to be patient with the new system. Students having trouble with registration are should call the registration helpline at 855-8200, and those having problems accessing or logging into the OneStart portal should contact the UITS Support Center at 855-6789.\n"Anytime you have a new system, it's going to take time for people to get accustomed to the features and overall operation," Gillespie said. "It's a learning process."\nThough Zendel is relieved to be registered for 15 credit hours in the fall, he said he is not looking forward to spring registration.\n"Insite and RegWeb were so much easier," Zendel said. "If so many students are having problems with OneStart, why doesn't the University just switch back?"\n-- Contact general assignments editor Lori Geller at lfgeller@indiana.edu.