BFC, IUSA to examine priority registration

Now that students aren't able to waitlist as many classes in OneStart as they were using the Indiana Student Information Transaction Environment, the Bloomington Faculty Council plans to study the priority registration for athletes proposal in hopes of making improvements for the rest of the students.\nStudents used to the legacy system from INSITE are not afforded that measure any more. The legacy waitlist system afforded students to waitlist extra classes, drop a class if one of their waitlist courses has an open availability and simultaneously drop their originally scheduled class and add their waitlisted class automatically.\nThe IU Student Association will address the measure brought forth by the BFC Thursday at the IUSA Congress.\nPriority registration is not a realistic way to resolve problems within Onestart, said IUSA Vice President Scott Norman. \n"IUSA opposes the issue because it does not benefit the majority of students," he said. "It's for the benefit of 7 percent of students and does not benefit 93 percent."\nThe proposal will allow student-athletes to register before all other students. It is used as a tool to keep student-athletes on track to graduate and to stay eligible to participate in athletic events. Beginning in fall 2005 the National Collegiate Athletic Association will put student-athletes under more stringent academic guidelines. To remain eligible to play their respective sports, the guidelines mandate that the athletes take the necessary classes to graduate after each year. Priority registration will make available the necessary classes for student-athletes despite the loss of the waitlist option in INSITE. If priority registration is adopted, it will be enforced for a three-year period. During this period, the council will be looking to implement and improve ways to give all students, not just athletes, the availability of a waitlist option through OneStart's student information system, according to a BFC document.\nBFC Chairman David Daleke said the BFC will study the progress of priority registration for athletes to see if it is a practical tool and to also address the same problems with registration for all students.\n"We are addressing the problems with OneStart," he said. "It will be studied as it goes on. We want every student to be able to graduate on time and stay on pace."\nThe timetable for seeing improvements to OneStart is unknown, Daleke said.\n"I doubt the problems will be solved in one year," he said. "The issue has been raised. We lost waitlist functionality from INSITE when we made the transition to PeopleSoft. We are in ongoing discussions with PeopleSoft to incorporate similar features into OneStart."\nNorman said students have lost rather than gained from the transition to OneStart.\n"We lost a solid waitlist option and no longer have a rain check option, which was favorable under INSITE," he said. "Class enrollment has increased because students are not taking the classes that they want. (OneStart) is an inconvenience to students."\nThe priority registration for athletes should not be at the top of the priority list, said IUSA President Tyson Chastain. \n"Priority registration benefits a small minority of students," he said. "It is a hard sell to all students. The rain-check system we had in INSITE should be addressed before (approving) priority registration. 37,400 students are looking for a waitlist option in OneStart."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Eric Tash at etash@indiana.edu