From IBM Punch Cards To Online Schedules, Technology Continues To Improve Registration Process

By Tom Gray
Registrar

It was March 1973. Faculty and staff at Metro were getting ready for two intense weeks of congregated registration for the spring quarter at Currigan Hall. (If you haven't noticed, Currigan Hall has been demolished and a $260 million dollar bond fee is doubling the size of the current Colorado Convention Center.) Registration staff was creating 9,000 packets of IBM punch cards for pick-up by students who were scheduled to check-in for registration alphabetically every three hours over the two-week, "ball-room" style registration period. The punch cards contained student data: name, SSN, (In October 2002, we changed the prime identification number from the SSN to an assigned ID) address, phone, ethnicity, as well as a registration course request card. Students picked up more punch cards during registration. A class card from each department for each class they were taking. Another for their total tuition and fees, drop and add cards if a student wanted to change a class schedule and, of course, the ever-present G.U.S. card.

Our day started at 7 a.m. and ended about 9 p.m., except Friday. We came in on the weekend to organize all the punch cards in trays before they were fed to the IBM computer on the seventh floor of the Forum Building at 13th and Cherokee. (The Forum Building is now owned by the city of Denver and was converted into low income housing about 10 years ago.) Registration cleanup usually took about three-four weeks into the next quarter, just in time for us to get ready for the next quarter. (Metro changed from the quarter system to the semester system in 1976, and the whole college moved to the Auraria campus for the Spring 1977 semester.)

In 1975, we initiated "mail-in" registration. We placed a registration request form on the back of the class schedule and told students to mail it back with the "call numbers" of the classes they wanted. They had to give us a primary choice and an alternate choice. We processed their registration request and used new pin-fed letterhead printers to send students their schedule via mail about six weeks later. The printers only used CAPITAL LETTERS. If students wanted to change their schedule, they had to come to "walk-in" registration the two weeks before the quarter began. During "walk-in" registration in 1975 we started using CRTs - Cathode Ray Tubes. (CRTs later became known as monitors or terminals that were attached to CPUs -Central Processing Units, or more commonly known today as computers.)

In 1986, we really improved services to students by becoming only the third college in the country to register students by a voice response system or "touch-tone" registration system. Students could register for classes from a phone any where in the world! The one drawback with this system was that you had to have a touch-tone phone. We were concerned that there were still many rotary phones in use and thus students would not be able to use the new voice response system. We did a survey of students and found that there were less than 1 percent of the students who still had rotary phones.

Fast forward to the present. Change continues. It's the 21st century. More than 75 percent of Metro students now register for their classes using the Web at http://www.mscd.edu/banner.htm. If you haven't tried it you should. It beats standing in line at "congregated" registration by a mile. It's also better than "mail-in" registration because you get your classes instantly. And it certainly is far better than the pedantic, menu-driven voice response system. Web registration is also dynamic. You get real time information about the classes you want. Is there space left in the class? Is there still room on the wait list? Who is teaching the class? Has there been a room change? Is the class canceled?

The Registrar's Office has always used technology to provide students and faculty with the most up-to-date, convenient and efficient services. And so, beginning with Spring 2004, the College will change to a class schedule that is solely on the Web http://www.mscd.edu/enroll/registrar/sched.htm. The Web class schedule together with Web registration will allow students to register for classes conveniently and easily with all the up-to-the minute information about classes and schedule changes. Students can register 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They can search for all available classes, especially newly added classes that never got into the old printed class schedule. They can search for classes by a whole bunch of variables. They can print out their class schedule immediately as well as pay their tuition and fees via credit card on the Web.

Students can also change their address, phone number and PIN on the Web. They can request official transcripts, 24-hour turn-around, and print out their unofficial transcript on the Web. Students can also print out their grades each semester. Students who need enrollment verification for a job or graduate school can do it on the Web and get a 24-hour turn-around.

The Registrar's Office has also eliminated the need for students who are receiving any kind of financial assistance to verify their enrollment with their lender. Several years ago the Registrar's Office outsourced the enrollment verification process with a non-profit organization called the National Student Loan Clearinghouse (NSLC). The college simply sends an electronic file of all enrolled student to NSLC and they work together with lenders across the country to verify student enrollment. It's faster and easier for the student, the college and for the lenders, and best of all the outsourcing is free.

Another technological innovation that the Registrar's Office and the Office of Admissions have collaborated on the past few years has been the imaging of all student academic folders. No longer do we maintain close to 10,000 student academic folders in a secure vault area in the Registrar's Office. Instead, all of the folders have been imaged and can be instantly viewed on a computer. This allows other office, such as Academic Advising, Transfer Services, and Deans' Office to view a student's academic record without having to come to our office and view the documentation there.

And there is more change to come. Work is under way for students to be able to print out their own CAPP Report (degree audit) using "Web CAPP." Students will also be able to perform "what-if" scenarios to see how their course work applies to different majors. Watch for this new service during the 2003-04 year. And for faculty, the Registrar's staff is working on Electronic Grade Submission. This will allow faculty to submit grades on a secure, web site from any computer. It will eliminate the current bubble grade sheets. This service should also be available during the 2003-04 year.

All of these services are better than what they were before. Change brings about new and improved ways of doing things. And this is only a taste of what's to come when the Metro portal - MetroConnect - arrives.