Otago smooths enrolment process with online option

By RICHARD PAMATATAU

Students looking to head south to Otago University can now enrol online for the second semester and from August for 2005 enrolments.

John Price, Otago University Academic Services director, said Otago's online registration option went live last week and would smooth the process for both students and administration.

For the future it would help with capacity planning, he said.

"This new, easily navigated and intelligent system not only allows students to complete their registration online at their own pace, it also includes a number of advanced features such as course checking, a progress indicator and the option to revisit registration details after they have been submitted," he said.

The course checking feature allowed students to check any potential problems with the course of study they had selected, including timetable clashes and workload.

The course checker could alert students early if they had not yet attained a prerequisite for a paper, or that it was restricted to a certain programme, Price said

Any potential problems would be automatically noted on the forms used during the later course advice and approval process, where advisers would go over them with the student.

There was also instant access to information about all the university's papers, programmes and fees.

"As people continue to conduct more and more of their everyday business over the internet, it's increasingly important that we can provide this option of a user-friendly, highly functional, web-based means of registering for study at Otago," he said.

However, though students could not yet pay their fees online, they would be able to view and revisit their registration details online.