NEWS

Can the RAC, ocvax c-ya

by Margo Lipschultz

It's been a year for changes across Oberlin's campus, what with the new meal plan and the new e-mail system. Now it appears that more change is on the way in the form of Banner, the new administrative software package officials are integrating little by little into various campus departments.

While the high-tech Banner package will replace the current home-grown computing systems presently operating in most of the College's administrative offices, students will most feel its effect when they register for next semester's courses in April, according to Opus Communications Manager Ami Berger.

On Feb. 16 through the 18, 150 students, staff and faculty members had the opportunity to test-drive Presto, the new registration system scheduled to replace the current vax system beginning this April.

Presto, or Personal Records for Employees and Students at Oberlin, is a term concocted by the College's Information and Technology Advisory Group to describe the web interface students will interact with when they register for classes.

From Tuesday through Thursday, selected students, staff and faculty logged on to Presto using fake ID numbers and passwords and even a mock Fall semester registration supplement. Each person was provided with a packet detailing instructions on how to use the unfamiliar system.

"We tried to make the mock registration mimic the real thing as closely as possible," Berger said.

The Information and Technology Advisory Group's goal in organizing the mock registration was three-fold, according to Berger. "We wanted to make sure the system works, to get a feeling about how the network handles the new system, and to get feedback from a variety of campus populations," she said.

One of the most apparent changes between the old and new systems, according to Berger, is in the acronyms assigned to the various passwords students need to register. Consent Access Numbers will become Consent Access Labels, while Registration Access Codes will be called Registration Alternate Pins.

Other changes include the basic appearance and layout of the registration program, as well as a broader range of computers which can access the system. While vax can only be run on computers that are connected to it, Presto can be operated on any computer that runs the Internet.

This change should mean good news for students trying to register while off-campus or abroad, according to Berger. She added that Associate Professor of History Carol Lasser participated in the mock registration via a computer in London, as did an Oberlin alumnus currently living in New York.

Berger said the trial registration went very smoothly, especially considering the newness of the system. "It was kind of scary, but it seemed to go great," she said. "I was having nightmares about bringing the network to its knees, but that didn't happen. There were a few student complaints, but those were rare."

Junior Sarah Fineberg, a member of the Computing Center's Information and Technology Advisory Group, participated in the mock registration. "I think it went well," she said. "It has exciting possibilities for the future, to make registration fairer and easier for anyone to access."

Berger said the College will begin a massive outreach program to answer students' questions and tell them what to expect sometime before Presto becomes functional during April's registration period.

"There will be a pretty large-scale communication effort before April, with all-campus letters and demonstrations," Berger said. "We won't be throwing students into the new registration system and expect them to sink or swim."

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Copyright © 1998, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 127, Number 14, February 19, 1998

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