Reporter Volume 25, No.15 February 3, 1994

By MARK WALLACE
Reporter Staff

Touch Tone Registration, DARS, and Schedule 25, computerized systems
designed to help UB better serve students and faculty, will begin
operating over the next several years, says John Karrer, assistant
vice president and director of student finances and records. These
systems will help UB improve its services for student registration,
student advisement and classroom scheduling, and will enable the UB
staff currently involved in those tasks to more fully address student
and faculty needs, Karrer says.
	Touch Tone Registration, in which students can register by
phone for classes from anywhere in the world, is scheduled to be fully
in place by spring 1995, says Susan Eck, college registrar. But
beginning in spring 1994, a new computerized registration system will
help UB begin its registration at a more appropriate time, Eck says.
She notes that UB registers its students later than other major
schools in the SUNY system.
	Students will be first registered in mid-April, Eck says, and
then have a period of roughly 2 -1/2 weeks to make changes in their
schedules. This will give them plenty of time to consult with advisors
on how best to go about getting the courses they need, she says.
	"Students who have a check stop that keeps their registration
from going through will have a chance to clear it," Eck says.
"Students who try to register for major-only classes because they
think they have been accepted as a major but then find out that they
haven't been accepted, for whatever reason, and therefore have not
been given the courses they registered for, will also have a chance to
clear up their problems. And freshmen, who sometimes get only one or
even no classes on initial registration, will have time to speak with
their advisors about what courses are available."
	The new registration system should have a major impact on
Drop/Add lines, Eck says, and "students will go home for the semester
with a much saner idea of their next semester's schedule."
	This computerized registration system will be in effect only
for about two semesters before Touch Tone Registration becomes
available, Eck says. Basically, in Touch Tone Registration, students
will get an appointment during a period of several weeks to submit
their registration forms by phone, Eck says. They will be able to
resubmit those forms by phone at any time after that initial period.
But, she adds, final decisions about the way Touch Tone Registration
will be used at UB have not been made.
	"Touch Tone Registration gives UB the flexibility to handle
registration any way they want," Eck says. "We're prepared to work out
Touch Tone Registration in a variety of ways, all of which are topics
for open discussion among the UB community."
	A test of Touch Tone Registration with a limited number of
students will be conducted in December 1994, Eck says. "We still have
to work out a script for Touch Tone Registration that tells students
how to proceed in a straightforward manner that's not too time
consuming," she says.
	John Karrer says that Touch Tone Registration should do away
with Drop/Add lines entirely, and will greatly help students who live
at a distance from UB and may have trouble getting to campus in time
to handle scheduling difficulties.
(Degree Audit Recording System) DARS 
	DARS (Degree Audit Recording System) will enable students to
receive technical advisement about the course requirements of UB and
of specific departments and programs, says Nicolas Goodman, interim
vice provost for undergraduate education. Some aspects of DARS should
be usable by fall 1994, Goodman says, with the system fully in place
by 1995.
	DARS will access the Student Information System (SIS) to get a
student transcript which it will then analyze to determine what
requirements the student has met, and what requirements the student
still needs to meet, Goodman says. The requirements of the student's
major, general education requirements, and transfer credits will all
be considered by DARS, he says. 
	"Students can ask DARS various 'what if' questions," Goodman
says, "such as 'what requirements do I have to meet if I decide to be
an English major, or an Engineering major?'"
	In order to work properly, however, DARS will have to know
what the various requirements are, which is complicated in a system of
so many programs and requirements, Goodman says. Various departments
will have to keep DARS up to date on changing requirements, he says.
	"The difficulty is that departments control their own programs
and curriculum," Goodman says. "I agree that they ought to, but
nevertheless, we will need some central monitoring of requirements so
that we can know when they change." Goodman says that this monitoring
will be done through the Division of Undergraduate Academic Services
Curriculum Committee.
	There's still a problem with transfer credits and DARS,
Goodman says, because transfer records are not currently available in
a way that DARS can access. But the SPEEDE system may eliminate this
problem by helping various universities send their transcripts
electronically, he says, and UB already receives some transcripts
through SPEEDE. "Within a short time, the SPEEDE program should be
widely accepted and functioning," Goodman says, "but for now we still
have a serious data entry problem."
	DARS has other potential applications, Goodman says, noting
that it can help forecast student demand for specific courses. And, he
says, it will enable the small, overworked staff of professional
advisors to concentrate their efforts more on academic, personal, and
career guidance rather than just the nuts and bolts of course
requirements.
	In fact, Goodman says that DARS is just one part of a
reconsideration of the whole student advisement process at UB. "We
want to get faculty involved in advisement, which under the current
system wouldn't work well," he says. "But once the nuts and bolts are
handled automatically, faculty can begin to advise students in a
variety of ways.
	"In a system like DARS, a question always arises about who
will have the final sayQin other words, what happens if a student
doesn't think DARS is right, or when there are specific exceptions to
the requirements that a department or program accepts?" Goodman says.
"The final word lies with departments and faculty as to whether a
student has met their requirements. But record keeping in such
departments will be much easier, because DARS can take over that
burden."
Schedule 25
	The new Schedule 25 computer system automatically assigns
particular courses to particular classrooms, says Susan Eck, which
eliminates about five weeks of manual work each semester. Other than
that, nothing about the process of assigning classrooms will be
changed, she says, noting that all specifications regarding locations,
days and times, enrollment caps, and room sizes will be honored by the
program. A limited test of Schedule 25 will be run for spring 1994
classroom scheduling, Eck says, with the system fully in place in fall
1994.
	John Karrer says that "Fear that Schedule 25 will just assign
classrooms without regard for what anyone wants is simply not true.
Schedule 25 just sorts and resorts information efficiently, in the way
that computers do. If a particular outcome is unsatisfactory, the
program can simply be re-run.
	"Both Schedule 25 and Touch Tone Registration are being
directed by a committee appointed with input from the president and
senior vice president that has staff and technical representation on
it," Karrer says. "But any policy decisions regarding use or
capabilities of these systems are not made by the committees. The
committees can recommend what they think is the best way to use the
systems, but they don't make the decisions."