MyZou organizes registration
MyZou is a more convenient registration system than STARMU was.
Published Nov. 3, 2008
Students began course registration for the spring 2009 semester Oct. 27 on myZou, a registration system that has brought some frustration but an overall improvement from previous years.
The dates and times are assigned to students through myZou, a process some students said they find annoying. According to University Registrar Brenda Selman however, few issues arise from the random assignment of dates.
Junior Jasmine Rangel said that while many of her friends have already registered for courses, she couldn't until Nov. 3 because of her assigned enrollment appointment. She said the registration process can be frustrating but that it has ultimately improved from the past.
"My freshman year it was so hard to understand because you would have to go through and find where you went to school because other schools were on the same system," Rangel said. "Then you had to put in your number and you always had to verify who you were, so it took, like, forever."
MU's previous registration system was STARMU, which was replaced by myZou in fall 2007. Selman said STARMU was a legacy system - an obsolete system that is not replaced because of high usage, even when functionality is not optimal. Through this system, students were required to download a "host on-demand" to their computer.
"It was a system that was tougher for students to use because of that interface, whereas myZou is Web based," Selman said.
Associate Registrar Larry Linneman is responsible for assigning enrollment appointments in the myZou system. He said the student population is broken down into manageable groups based on year in school. Within the sections divided by class level, the date and time assignments are completely random.
Appointment times begin every 15 minutes every weekday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Linneman said.
"I go through and determine the amount of students that need to fit in that block," Linneman said. "If we've said that seniors, for example, will register the first three days, I go through and determine how many appointment times I need and I assign them based on that number."
Selman said students must be broken down into small enough sections or it could cause the system to crash.
The registration process has a priority system, starting with seniors. This system has been in place for many years, Selman said.
"Another thing that students don't realize is that the academic units are monitoring the registration and they open or close sections in order to have appropriate level of fill," Selman said.
Selman said this means a student could attempt to register for a particular course and find that it is closed, and then the next day more seats have been added.
"I'm not saying that happens in every section in every course, but they do that to manage the enrollment and to look at the demand," she said.
Selman said students should prepare for courses becoming full by communicating with instructors and checking with specific departments to see if more sections will open up. She also said students should prepare alternative course options.