A new registration interface was released to Oswego State students in January to simplify registration, which opens on April 11. Students are able to use Oswego State’s new interface while registering for fall classes. The new interface is available on myOswego under the ‘registration’ tab.
Students can choose which interface they want to use during fall registration and can easily switch from the old interface to the new interface.
“Just because you start in one doesn’t mean you can’t go back to the other,” registrar Jerret LeMay said.
The third party company that owns Banner, the interface Oswego State currently uses, started to develop the new interface a few years ago.
“Last year when I saw it demoed there were only about a dozen schools using it at the time,” LeMay said. “But they were using it and it was live.”
Out of the 64 SUNY campuses, 44 use Banner to register for classes. LeMay first met the interface Oswego State currently uses in 2007.
“I thought, it is really basic and kind of old, but it functions,” LeMay said. “Here it is, 2016 and were still using the same interface.”
Oswego State is the second SUNY school that has adopted the new registration interface just in time for class registration.
“Hopefully this will help our students be a little further ahead of the curve,” LeMay said.
This new interface will work hand-in-hand with Degree Works while creating plans for the students. When a plan is built in Degree Works with advisors, it will show up on the new interface. One of the new features is that if there is a plan built on the new interface, it will make class registration easier because all you need to do is click one button to register all of the classes on the plan.
Another new feature of the interface is that it makes time conflicts easier to notice before it is time to register for classes. When looking up classes, it will lay out students’ schedule and make them aware of any time conflicts. It is also more visual while looking to see if a class is full or if any prerequisites are needed.
Once students create their schedule, they can now email it to themselves and add it to their Google calendar.
A feature that was added is known as the conditional add and drop. This comes in handy when two courses have a conflicting time. It allows you to add a new course without risking dropping a course that is already scheduled. It will only drop the course on the condition that the new course will be successfully added.
LeMay is not concerned about any possible glitches with the new interface.
“The glitches we know of, we have been able to work around,” LeMay said. “That said, there may be things we didn’t run across in our testing.”
There are many helpful videos, tips and tricks on the registrar’s website that were put together after 400 students used the new interface in January. Some of the students that stumbled upon the new interface were able to provide feedback which was the basis for the videos, tips and tricks.
Students are highly recommended to look at videos on the website that run through how to register for classes before they register during the fall.
“It’s the next step in being able to provide better service. We have it labeled as Beta,” LeMay said. “We haven’t pulled the safety net out yet.”
Jerret LeMay, Registrar
315.312.5408
