A recent survey of UW-Madison students shows that freshman this year are more wired than students before them, with 91 percent of all students owning a computer. Administrators are in line with this trend as they convert most correspondence with students to the Internet.
This became most obvious on Aug. 5, when the touch-tone registration system was permanently discarded in favor of Web-based enrollment and registration through the My UW-Madison portal.
\We had decided about a year ago that it would be all Web enrollment,"" said Joanne Berg, interim registrar at UW-Madison.
Originally, the touch-tone system was set to disappear in September 2003. However, with improvements to the university's Web site last spring, the change was made sooner, Berg said.
The switch to Web-based enrollment and registration has been promoted all summer through posters, buttons and banners placed throughout campus and emails to students and faculty. Yesterday, the Wisconsin Alumni Association culminated the campaign by placing thousands of yellow plastic ducks on Bascom Hill and in fountains near Library Mall and Engineering Hall to go along with the Registrar's Office ""get your ducks in a row"" promotion.
""The ducks are really a fun thing,"" Berg said.
They are free for students to take and all ducks remaining today will be collected and donated to campus childcare centers.
So far, the Registrar's Office has received mostly positive feedback about the switch.
""I think it is very convenient,"" said Trisha Graeve, a UW-Madison graduate student. ""I've used touch-tone before and that seemed to be more of a problem.""
Berg said she worked with the staff at the McBurney Disability Resource Center to ensure that the online system would be accessible to all.
However, some students were unhappy with the change. In order to accommodate them and those without computer access, the Registrar's Office does have a phone bank available. Students can call the phone bank for any enrollment or registration needs and any technical questions about the system at 263-2222.
Freshman were introduced to the online enrollment and registration system at SOAR, which helped the Registrar's Office and Division of Information Technology staff make a smooth transition.
""It [was] a really good test for the system,"" said Brian Rust, communications manager for DoIT. ""Almost all the students who showed up for SOAR had already activated their NetID and were already looking at it.""
Thus far, DoIT does not report any major problems with the system. However, they are closely watching the system this week since an increased number of hits to the site are expected with the start of class.
""The number of hits to the site is way up but so far it's not causing any problems,"" Rust said.
