Registration underway

Tuesday morning, 608 students registered for classes.

This marked the first day of registration, and the credit-based registration schedule first established last spring has been operating as it should, according to Bruce Vieweg, chief information officer of the college.

The system splits each registration day into two groups determined by the amount of credits that have been completed.

“This makes the load a lot lighter,” she said.

Erick Peterson, the campus registrar, said they want to have under 300 students trying to register at a time.

The divvying up of students prevents a system overload.

The first day of registration is generally the lightest, but this year’s senior class is somewhat bigger than in past years, meaning greater registration numbers.

The system only hit normal snags in the process. Banner slowed down for approximately 20 minutes Tuesday morning due to students logging out and logging back in repeatedly when they felt the system was moving too slowly, according to Peterson.

In the past, registration has been a concern for some students. For example, during the fall of 2012, many students were locked out of the Banner system and unable to register for hours.

Vieweg received many complaints about registration from the people who could not get into Banner.

“The system simply couldn’t keep up,” he said.

He said everyone tried to get onto the system all at once. The system overloaded and people got locked out, sometimes for hours.

In response to these happenings, registration system underwent a change for when students registered in spring 2013.

According to Vieweg, the school looked into many different ideas to revamp the process, including sorting registration by GPA or earned credits from only Concordia.

“We could invest several hundred thousand dollars into hardware,” Vieweg said.  “That didn’t make any sense for something we do twice a year.”

Instead of making this significant investment, the college decided to try a different path to address the system concerns. Not all of these changes have been put in motion yet, though.

For some, registration will take on a whole new format.

Select students are trying a new mobile app that allows them to put classes in a “cart” and submit them when registration times come.  The mobile app will be available on Android, iPhone and iPad.

Additionally, the Banner system will be getting a more user friendly computer interface, which should hopefully take effect over the summer and be used next year, Peterson said.

For now, the system will remain the same for most students on campus.

“I don’t anticipate having any problems,” Vieweg said about this year.

Accompany with a Dos and Don’ts chart

“No one told us what to do.”

Mandi Dahlseng, now a senior, said that no one told her what to do when she was registering freshman year.

Here is a list of Do’s and Don’ts for registration.

Don’t: Wing it.
Do: Meet with your adviser to get your alt pin and make a plan for registering.

Don’t: Panic if you receive an “Enter ID and Pin” page.
Do: Log out and log back in.  It is an error.

Don’t: Keep entering the wrong pin number. Entering the wrong pin too many times will lock you out of the system.
Do: Double check to make sure it is correct.  If it is not, call the registrar or your adviser to get the right one.

Don’t: Expect to make it into all of your classes.
Do: Have a “Plan B” and “C” just in case.

Don’t: Wait until you register to see if you have holds.
Do: Check for holds on your account at least a week before you register.  Having a hold prevents you from registering.

Remember, check what time you can register. Go to Banner, click Student, click Registration, and click When Do I Register?  This will tell you when you can register based on your completed credits.