Datatel used for pre-registration

Tosha Rae Long
Staff Writer
April 15, 2004, Page 1

This week began the process of scheduling students for the 2004 fall semester. Adviser training has been completed in anticipation for this week’s registration period.
“There were 12 sessions of training,” said Nan Weilage, Academic Affairs Office Director. “This fall we will have one more session for new teachers and those on sabbatical.”
Weilage said the web advisor is set up as a ‘point and click’ system much like the Internet. Advisers can access transcripts and audits. The training process was designed to show advisers what screens exist and what is out there for use. Each adviser did web test before actually using the program live.
Advisers and students are really the only people who will use the web adviser, Weilage said.
The rest of the faculty will have to go through the original software, Datatel, to look at the web advising. Even then, only those with advisees have the capabilities to register students. The rest of the faculty can only use web adviser for viewing the class roster and such.
Overall, Weilage feels that web adviser and Datatel have been a positive experience.
“I think it is working pretty well,” Weilage said. “There are always a few people that don’t like it, but most have said that they liked it.”
The initial decision to choose Datatel was wielded down from nine initial companies who responded to Doane’s bid to one.
Doane had a software problem and the committee chose Datatel as the solution. The capabilities of this software are far better than the previous software used, Poise.
In the words of Sociology professor and committee member Steve Gunkel, “Could anything be worse?”
According to Gunkel, the selection committee was set up as divisional representation. There were several representatives from every area of Doane to look at all the possible companies.
In the first round, all nine companies gave proposals -- module-based written representation of every division on paper. Along with these proposals, company experience and size were considered, narrowing the choice down to five.
The next round involved web based simulations that allowed members to see some of the software capabilities.
This allowed the committee to reduce the choice down to three.
The final choice was a hard one, Gunkel said.
“There was give and take, forging consensus was a major part of it,” Gunkel said. “Datatel was very responsive, answering questions within the day. That played a big part. Also, they had worked with many comparable institutions.”
The decision to implement Datatel over the other software companies was also largely a visual thing.
“Visually, it is easier to interpret,” Gunkel said. “It is very user friendly.
The careful thought process that went into this is well deserved, Gunkel said. All angles were covered.
“There were so many different perspectives,” Gunkel said. “There was a lot of deliberation. We didn’t want to leave Poise 1 for Poise 2.”
The most talked about feature of Datatel is the “What if” advising.
This feature allows advisers and students to look at their four-year plan and see what needs to be done. For example, if a student wanted to change majors, i.e. “What if I am a education major and want to change to a mass communication major.”
The Datatel software will show what is needed to successfully make this transition. This design will allow for better advising, Gunkel said.
“With this program, it is a lot faster,” Gunkel said. “This will allow more time to talk about internships and such, rather than just scheduling classes.”
Datatel is living up to its potential, Gunkel said. He is hopeful for the future.
“With any new system, there is going to be hiccups,” Gunkel said. “My hope is that it is as smooth a transition as possible.”