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111 Royal, Bryan
(Across S. College
from Tom's BBQ)
846-5344
1
■
SUPERIOR
AUTO SERVICE
PHI KAPPA SIGMA
AGAINST
Thurs., Jan. 19,1989
418 College Main
846-1838
B.Y.O.B.
Chicken
q College Main
U)
>>■
»_
o>
JC
O
presents
Re View: Women In-Sight
An exhibition of painting,
mixed media, and sculpture
feature selected works of va
rious women artists.
MSC Gallery
January 9-February 3, 1989
Reception
Thursday, January 19, 1989
7 p.m.
MSC Gallery
The public is invited and en
couraged to attend the recep
tion for this important show.
Page 8
The Battalion
Thursday, January 19,1989
Registering students say howdy
to ‘Mr. Vocom,’ easy scheduling
By Sissie Allensworth
Reporter
As students frantically add and/or
drop classes in search of the perfect
class schedule, they are quickly be
coming familiar with the soothing
sounds of “Mr. VOCOM.”
“Mr. VOCOM” is the nickname
members of the Student Informa
tion Management System have affec
tionately given Texas A&M’s touch-
tone phone registration system.
The nickname refers to the voice
communications used in the system.
Larry Malota, manager of SIMS,
said the people who have worked
with the system have become at
tached to it.
SIMS is the organization that im
plemented and maintains the phone
registration system Texas A&M stu
dents use to register for classes.
The system was first tested in the
summer of 1986 by students who
were given instructions while stand
ing in line to register Pavilion. Stu
dents were asked to test the new sys
tem and provide feedback about
problems and possible im
provements. Malota said the stu
dents loved it and the system was set
up for use by all students the follow
ing fall.
“We’ve been using the system as
our primary mode of registration
ever since that time,” Malota said. “It
has been accepted well and has been
good for Texas A&M.”
Before touch-tone registration,
computer terminals set up in the Pa
vilion were used for registration.
“Students had to stand in line and,
quite honestly, those lines got pretty
long,” Malota said. “Students had to
wait a long time in the heat and
sometimes rain.
“There were 30 to 35 operators
dedicated to the registration process.
Now we only need three to six oper
ators for a help line for students.”
Malota said having less operators
means lower costs which is just one
of the many advantages of phone
registration,
“Registering by phone is much
more convenient for the students,”
Malota said. “They can call in from
their dorm rooms or apartments.
They can even call, or have their
parents call, long-distance.”
Phone registration times are from
7 a.m. to 10 p.m. as opposed to 8
a.m. to 5 p.m. for computer registra
tion. Hours have been extended to
accommodate students who are in
class or at work during working
hours.
Malota said few schools have
adopted the telephone registration
system, but many more will.
“We got the idea from the folks
over at Brigham Young University,”
Malota said. “They were probably
one of the pioneer schools using the
touch-tone, voice-response system
for telephone registration. (VO
COM) is patterned a lot like what
they use, although we’ve expanded
here a lot. We want to give the stu
dents here more options.”
Malota says SIMS hopes to ex
pand the touch-tone system by al
lowing students to obtain informa
tion about class times and locations
and about billing.
“Now it’s just ‘Math 103 — Section
501 — three hours,’ ” Malota said,
immitating the voice-response heard
when registering. “But we’ll have to
get some additional hardware before
we expand.
“Some stuff we’re looking at far
ther down the road is help in the fi
nancial aid area and the admissions
area. We want to allow the students
to call and say, ‘What’s the status of
my (school) application?’ or ‘What’s
going on with my loan?’ ”
Malota says the students will be
“There were 30 to 35 op
erators dedicated to the
registration process (be
fore phone registra don.)
Now we only need three
to six operators for a help
line for students. ”
—Larry Malota,
manager, SIMS
able to receive an answer by voice- re
sponse over the telephone.
Malota said that SIMS, to make
registering more convenient for stu
dents, posts lists of class sections that
are closed in the Pavilion. He said
they also post lists of students that
are blocked for registration by the
University.
“It makes it easier for students so
they don’t call up on their day to reg
ister and find out they’re blocked
and have to run around getting unb
locked before they can register,” Ma
lota said.
There are 32 incoming lines in the
phone registration system.
“We hope to expand that by an
additional 32 lines,” Malota said.
“We had hoped to have them by this
“This University has too
many lines as it is and I
like not having to go to
campus to register like we
used to. ”
—Ginger Reneau
senior
“For the juniors and senn
there’s a lot of activity in the monj
ings,” Malota said. “When youge:
die sophomores, and especially i|.
freshmen, the time that it took fort
to get any f ree lines went fartherac]
farthei into the afternoon. In fan
on the freshmen days it was actual
late in the evening.”
Malota said there
were seve®
possible reasons for the busy linesJ
freshmen day
November but negotiations have
taken longer than we had hoped.”
Malota said the lines should be
available by April, in time for regis
tration lor Fall 1989.
The problem isn’t the number of
lines available but the times the stu
dents call, Malota saici.
“Everybody decides at 7 or 6:30
(a.m.) to start calling and all the lines
get bottlenecked-np,” Malota said.
“People get discouraged because
they dial, and dial, and dial.”
Malota says the students start call
ing early because they are anxious to
get the classes they want.
“I can undeistand from the stu
dents’ perspective that they want to
get in early in the day so they can get
into these classes that tend to fill up
really early,” Malota said. “It’s easy
for me to say, ‘Hey, students! You
need to wait until right after lunch
or afternoon or until another day,’
but, quite honestly, that is the best
thing to do.”
Malota says SIMS and GI E are
working together to try to alleviate
some of these problems.
General Telephone is queuing-up
calls during registration, which will
help students not have to continue
redialing.
Students are assigned specific
days to register based on classifica
tion and last name initials. Graduate
students and seniors are first.
Malota said that on the days of
registration for upperclassmen the
lines were usually free by the af
ternoon.
including iht lari;
contention for freshman class
Other possible reasons include;
large numbers of freshmen enroll
in the University and the inexperl
ence of the caller
Another problem the studemsai [
having, Malota said, is confusii
about their specific day to register. !
“Students call and say, 'But Ian,
senior. I’ll be a senior next semesiei
Malota said. “But students have;
register by the hours they cunenr|
have at the time of registration.”
The touch-tone registration si
tern is on the 260-exchange, meat
ing the number called to legistl
starts with 260. The system starief.
on the 845-exchange and this cause!
problems for the system.
“The 845-numbers are ilie nuitl
hers on campus, in all the office®
and when the students started i|
register it flooded the system,” M
lota said. “Calling f rom an 845-nui*
her also gave the caller an adtan
(age. Students who called from vs
845-number could get in easierthal
from off campus or from a 260-e\B
change.”
Malota said there is no advantagi
now from a 260-exchange or an®;
other lines.
Malota said students like thissil
tern better than terminal registn*
tion.
Ginger Reneau, a senior fmancl
and accounting major, agreed.
“1 like the new system,” Renea,
said.“This University has too manflj
lines as it is and 1 like not havingil
go to c amptrs to register like wcuskR
to.”
Other students who have nevt||
experienced terminal registratkK
have different views.
“I think it’s a neat system but die#
need to make it so it’s easier to gel i f,
or something,” said Michelle Allaic*
a junior transfer student from LouE-
siana State University.
“The students by-and-large havR
liked it." Malota said. “I don’t see.®
scrapping it at all. We’ve been ver®
pleased with it.”
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