Time to bring WebReg out of Stone Age

It’s that time of the semester again. Freshmen who haven’t risen before noon since Parents Weekend are pulling themselves out of bed at ungodly hours to reserve a spot in Writing 140. Seniors, whose providence it is to take courses such as Deepwater Cruising (NAUT 001ax) and Ballroom Dancing (THTR 188a), are reading up on the electives most likely to guarantee a multiple choice final exam and planning a five-day weekend.

As students are feverishly clicking “commit changes” in the upcoming weeks, however, they will be doing so on a system that is sorely outdated — an “On-Line Registration Form” that was most likely updated the last time “on-line” was the preferred spelling.

Though other school programs are keeping up with the times, Web Registration is stagnate. The school has already looked toward making improvements to its advisory programs; last April, the Undergraduate Student Government passed a resolution to provide interdisciplinary advisers for students double majoring in different schools. Since 2007, advisers have also been using a comprehensive database that contains students’ academic information. SCampus’s website recently underwent a redesign that includes a system where registered students can post comments as well as a search bar.

Though many parts of the registration system have been updated to accommodate a burgeoning student population, USC’s web registration system is still in need of a major upgrade. (Compared to the improved SCampus, for instance, WebReg looks like an old version of MySpace.)

The WebReg interface would benefit greatly from some of SCampus’ additions — especially a comment section.

There has been a lot of student bluster about the lack of a cohesive course guide. Students can access USG’s guide or the university’s course evaluation website, but the former is in its nascent stages and isn’t comprehensive enough yet, while the latter doesn’t have a forum for student feedback.

By including a comment section in the web registration system, students would be able to provide feedback in a place where it would be most helpful — outgoing seniors could, for example, warn others against the ballroom dancing class with an overly athletic final exam. This function would cover the gap left by the less-than-cohesive course guides.

The site would also benefit from a general streamlining of its organization; such a process might clear up clerical mysteries — for example, why linguistics falls under the “Hindi” category, or why French and Italian are grouped together.

A reorganization might negate the necessity of a search bar, but that would also be a welcome addition for hasty procrastinators who don’t have time to look through the many subsections for that elusive elective.

Many college registration sites also offer professors’ e-mails next to courses so that students can send harried messages seeking spots in classes.

Though some changes would be merely cosmetic and an overall rehaul isn’t needed, the system lacks clarity and user friendliness. Implementing a few minor additions and tweaks could pay big dividends for students, and the changes are a long time coming.

It’s time for USC to push the development of its lagging web components, and make registration a little bit less of a headache.

Lucy Mueller is a senior majoring in cinema-television production and a managing editor for the Daily Trojan. Her column, “Everything is Copy,” runs Mondays.