I’ve been going at a semi-crazy pace lately, trying to get a major project (online course registration) done at work. It’s thankfully coming to an end, and I’m looking forward to slowing down a little and being able to take care of a few things around home before the arrival of our new little girl.
Alma College, where I work, has been using an outdated paper-based system for years to register students for courses. Students had to fill out forms, take them to advisors for approval, and then turn them into the Registrar’s Office. That’s when the hard work would start.
The diligent ladies who work in that office would hand-enter the course selections of hundreds of students into our main student database that tracks all course enrollments and grades. It was a huge, manual process. So this year, I was in charge of writing a new system that would move the entire thing online.
Thankfull, it has been working very well. Students have a 2-week period to choose their courses and get them submitted. Tomorrow is the end of that period, and I’m pretty happy with how it’s all gone. Students use the online system to view courses based on any criteria they’re intersted in–instructor, meeting days, subject, etc… They then add them to their schedule. The order of the courses in the schedule is important; it’s a priority system, where a higher position in the list provides a better chance of getting a spot in the course. I also wrote a page in the system that allows students to view their entire academic record (transcript) with all past courses, grades and GPA. Students have never been able to do this online, and it’s a welcome change.
Once all the students have built their schedules, a script automatically loads all the course selections into our database system. The manual, paper system used to take hours and hours. I tested the automated script today…58 seconds to load an entire semester’s worth of courses into the database. 🙂
Anyway, this project has required a ton of extra work, but thankfully it will all be over this week. Since we’re only 28 days from Jen’s due date, this is not a moment too soon. We’ve purchased paint and a wallpaper border for the baby’s new room. We also have a crib ready to set up in there. But I just am behind on getting the work done. I’m looking forward to a fun Saturday of priming and painting. It’s hard to feel like you’re ready to welcome a new baby when you don’t have her room ready yet.
I’ll be sure to post some before/after pictures of Baby’s room. Time to rest for the evening. 🙂
Aaron,
Liberty has been using on-line system for awhile now, so if you want to view our system sometime, let me know.