This semester will be the first time most students will register online for classes.

After almost a decade of discussion, the University is ready to offer students a new option to register for classes: the Web.

“This is something we’ve been requesting for many years now and the institution is at a point where they were able to give us the go-ahead,” said Laura Waggoner, director of registration and scheduling. “We finally got approval in January.”

Though this will be the first time the new option will be available University wide; the freshmen class had the opportunity to use the system during Orientation and Registration this past summer.

“We used the new freshmen as our guinea pigs,” Waggoner said. “Students loved it and it proved to turn out very well.”

With less than six months to prepare for their test case, Waggoner enlisted a team of Information Technology Services staff members to design and create the online alternative.

According to Phyllis Short, a systems analyst with ITS who is responsible for the design and function of the Web page, the online method allows students to visually see what’s happening.

“It has a lot of the same features that the telephone has, but you can see so much more at one time,” Short said.

The Web registration system will run through the My BGSU portal and allow students to register for more than one class at a time, which is something that the STAR system doesn’t provide.

“If you’re prepared, and you have all your call numbers, instead of just adding them one at a time, you can enter up to six different call numbers and add all of those classes at one time,” Waggoner said. “For those who are prepared, they could be in and out in minutes.”

Despite the attractiveness of a quick registration process, the Web option may not work for everyone.

“It makes it hard for some of us commuters if you don’t have Internet access at home,” Brian Krupp, sophomore, said. “You’d have to travel somewhere where you are connected to the World Wide Web to get registered.”

The Web method also doesn’t eliminate the need for students to register within specific departments for some classes, including those students preparing to study abroad.

“I would use the new option if I weren’t going to England in the spring,” Meredith Briski, junior, said. “But the registration is done differently for that college.”

According to Waggoner, during open registration in July there was stiff competition between registering for classes through the Web and the STAR system.

“When open registration started at the end of July, STAR and web were running neck and neck,” she said. “We had half of the student population using the Web and half using STAR.”

Waggoner hopes that most students will give the Web option a try, but they will not be left out in the cold if they don’t.

“I’m hoping that eventually, we’ll migrate to Web, but we’ll still have both methods for a long time,” Waggoner said. “We don’t want to cut people off if they really like the STAR method.”

Comfortable with the STAR telephone system, junior Jordan Stevens sees no need for change.

“I don’t plan on using it,” he said. “I’m used to using the phone system and it’s something that has worked for me, so I don’t plan on changing anything.”

According to Waggoner, the Web method is being presented not only to offer students an additional option, but also to bring the University up to date with registration technology.

“Telephone registration is really outdated, which is why I have been trying to move toward Web registration for so many years,” she said. “In this day and age, we need to provide the students with technology and be able to use what we have on campus.”

According to Short, like the STAR system, the beginning of every registration assignment time will fill up quickly.

Unlike the STAR system’s 12-minute limit for registering, the Web method has no time limit but students will automatically be logged off if no activity is sensed within five minutes.

The demand for the Web method is anticipated to be just as high as the STAR system during the first minutes of registration assignment times.

“No matter what we do, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to keep up with the number of people who try to hit the system during those initial few minutes,” she said. “The idea is to be patient through that first half hour or so and then you should have no problems getting in to register for classes after that.”

Though many improvements have been made to get the “tweaks” out of the system, the ITS staff encourages students to give comments and suggestions for further modifications.

“Obviously, when you roll something out for the first time, you always find better ways of doing things,” Short said. “If there are suggestions, we’d love to hear them.”