Students confused by new software

When graduate student Adam Miller checked his bursar bill, he found an unusual number on one row.\nPrevious balance: $233,161.\n"My parents asked me how many parking tickets I got last year," he said.\nMiller also reported problems accessing his schedule online.\nProblems with OneStart, the new University software powered by PeopleSoft, have been the topic of discussion for students across the campus.\n"I hate it," junior Kyle Dietz said. "I think it's a lot harder and everything's so confusing."\nJosh Jenkins, another junior, agreed, saying the new software "just seems more confusing than Insite."\n"I really don't like the switch," he said. "I had to change times for my X204 class, but it made me drop and re-add, and when I dropped it wouldn't let me enroll. So now I'm waitlisted for a class I was enrolled in."\nIU officials were scrutinized last spring when students got a taste of the new software, which integrated other separate designs such as RegWeb and Insite into one compound system.\nAlthough IU registrar Roland Coté rallied behind the University's new software, he echoed Jenkins' waitlist sentiments.\n"It would be hard to ignore the difficulties students have faced in using the waitlist function in registration," he said. "Current students who had registered in the past certainly noticed that the process delivered by PeopleSoft is not as sophisticated as the system we had been using."\nAside from registration glitches, some students are disappointed with OneStart's technical performance.\n"Look at their user interface," computer science graduate student Corey Bowers said. "It's obvious they don't know how to create one. If our professors would have seen these things, they would have said, 'Whoa, red flag. Why would you ever do it that way?'"\nBowers and Miller also took exception to the software's dependence on Microsoft Internet Explorer, saying many system functions, such as printing, are unusable on other web browsers.\n"US-CERT has issued a warning that says Internet Explorer is unstable," Bowers said. "Why would they have all this money going into Internet Explorer support when it has proven buggy?"\nMiller said the money used to buy rights to the PeopleSoft software would have been better spent if it was given to the computer science department, where students could turn out a product in a year.\n"We could have done a better job," Bowers said. "At least computer science should have had an active role in development."\nCoté said "patience is the key," and that the University would implement necessary changes "when we are able to free up some resources." \nLast spring, the board of trustees approved a modest budget which reflected the economic status of Indiana.\nStudents are not in unanimous dissent of the new system. Sophomore James Pichon and senior Sarah Stamatkin had no problems, and said OneStart is more convenient.\n"I like it because everything's all in one place," Stamatkin said.\nSome students, like Miller, wonder why the University ever made the switch in the first place.\n"I think they're trying to fix something that's not broken," he said.\n-- Contact senior writer Rick Newkirk at renewkir@indiana.edu.