Online-only registration tests UNLV students

Jennifer Knight

Thursday, Dec. 5, 2002 | 11:22 a.m.

While Jenny Jeck was boarding a plane last week to visit her family for Thanksgiving, Jeck's friend was online registering her for classes at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Jeck, a 22-year-old hotel administration student, is one of thousands who have no choice but to use the Internet to register for next semester's classes.

Beginning with the spring semester, registration at UNLV will be exclusively online. UNLV is the third college in Nevada to make that move. Western Nevada Community College in Carson City made the change this past spring, and Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno is doing so at the same time as UNLV.

The online-only system provides students with a specific date and time to register. For some students, such as Jeck, it can be an inconvenience. Others, however, say the system is fast and easy.

"At the time I'm supposed to register, I'm going to be on a plane," Jeck said last week before she left. "I'm stressing out about how to get into all of my classes. I'm just going to give my friend all my information and hope she gets (my class schedule) all worked out for me."

As part of the move to online-only registration, UNLV has done away with printed class schedules as well as touch-tone phone registration and walk-in registration.

"There's so much information online that the students have been telling us they want more online services," Judy Belanger, UNLV's director of student financial services, said.

Students' use of online services has increased rapidly over the past two years. In fall 2000 only 50 percent of students used the Internet to register for classes. Usage rose to 70 percent in spring 2001 and is now at about 95 percent, Belanger said.

Any money saved by the change is put back into online services, Belanger said. UNLV used to spend $17,000 a year printing and mailing the course schedule. It now spends $9,000 on a registration guide. The money left over is spent on beefing up the school's computer system with more functions, Belanger said.

As with any big change, there are some kinks. Some students have complained about the lack of printed schedules, but school officials say with online schedules, students get the most current information. Others have suggested that people who do not own computers are put at a disadvantage.

"You really need a printed schedule to plan out all of your classes. That's the big complaint," said Eugene Guillermo, a 21-year-old junior marketing student.

"It's just a little harder now; I can't register over the phone," said Steve Kempfert, 25, an English major.

Some students, however, are in favor of online-only registration.

"It's a good idea because I've always registered online and most people already do it that way," said Amanda McCary, 21, a corporate communications major.

For upcoming semesters, UNLV officials hope to reduce the number of steps it takes to register, so that there are fewer pages to view and fewer buttons to click.

"The area of online services has been expanding dramatically," Belanger said.