Mary Kane
Last year, if you walked into any academic secretariat faculty office during the course registration period, you would have been confronted with a sea of students, lining up to ask questions about course requirements, their timetables and registration procedures. Sail forth to the arrival of Rabaska, the University’s new online registration tool for use by undergraduate students and staff.
“We now have a very efficient registration tool and a centralized registration help centre with phone and chat capabilities. This has diverted a lot of the questions associated with the registration process from faculty offices directly to the Registrar’s Office,’’ says François Chapleau, associate vice-president, Strategic Enrollment Management and registrar. “With line-ups disappearing from their offices, academic secretariats can now concentrate on the more complicated registration cases.”
Rabaska, which was developed as part of the ISIS (Innovation Student Information Systems) project in collaboration with Strategic Enrolment Management, is off to an excellent start. Since its launch in March 2007, it has generated 550,000 hits with more than 21,000 students registered under the new system.
Currently, 75 per cent of students from seven faculties have access to Rabaska. The goal is to have all students, including those from the faculties of Medicine, Education and Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, using the process by 2008.
Reaction from students and staff to this user-friendly system has been positive. They recognize its many advantages and features, including a virtual shopping cart for course selection; real-time display of available courses; notes to students from academic advisors; and a timetable scenario.
To complement Rabaska, the Registration Help Centre launched this year offers quick and direct phone assistance to newly admitted students who may not know how to access Rabaska or who don’t understand the sometimes confusing academic terminology. A “chat” option allows students to speak with experts from the Registration Help Centre. The Registrar’s Office staff wants to make this a useful tool for students and have invited users to comment on any improvements.
Offering a smooth registration process helps students get off to a good start. “From the Registrar’s Office perspective, having a centralized help centre has allowed us to become immediately aware of issues associated with Rabaska and has increased our ability to react rapidly and appropriately to any issues,” says Chapleau.
Related Links:
