OFFICE OF THE REGISTRAR
INDIANA UNIVERSITY
AUTOMATED COURSE EXCHANGE
Roland A. CoteAssociate RegistrarIndiana University
Franklin Hall 112
Bloomington, Indiana 47405
cote@indiana.edu
Mark M. McConahayAssociate RegistrarIndiana University
Franklin Hall 113
Bloomington, Indiana 47405
mcconaha@indiana.edu
Indiana UniversityBloomington, Indiana



Indiana University Bloomington has implemented an enhanced registration and schedule adjustment process that puts students in control of their own schedules and restores instructional integrity to the first week of classes.

When registration left the field house in 1983, drop and add took on greater significance and student participation rates increased. This increased activity threatened instruction during the first week of classes. The faculty requested that we find a way to restore enrollment stability during the first week and assure them they could begin covering important course material on the first day of classes. Because the nature of the field house drop and add process rewarded the enterprising individual, students requested a schedule adjustment process that would be fair and retained registration priority.

The Automated Course Exchange (ACE) takes advantage of the features of our terminal/work station based on­line registration system and is comprised of three major subsystems: 1) Automated Wait lists with contingent scheduling, 2) Continuous (touchstone) Schedule Adjustment, and 3) Rain checks for future semesters. When students encounter closed courses at registration, ACE allows them to record their needs by submitting wait list requests at the time of registration, matches these requests with "new" seats as they become available, allows students to adjust their schedule as soon as the need is identified, provides enrollment managers with course demand information, and grants priority in a subsequent semester to those whose course needs truly could not be satisfied.


Office of the Registrar
Indiana University
Automated Course Exchange


Introduction and Background

Indiana University is one of the oldest state universities in the Midwest. It was founded in 1820, only four years after Indiana achieved statehood, and has grown to include eight campuses. With an enrollment of nearly 93,000 students on its eight campuses, Indiana University ranks as one of the largest institutions of higher education in the United States. The 1,862-acre Bloomington campus is the oldest and largest in the university, and is the primary residential campus of the system with approximately 35,000 enrolled students. The campus offers instruction in over 100 undergraduate and greater than 200 graduate programs taught by approximately 1,500 faculty members.

As a major research institution, Indiana University offers a broad range of courses each semester. During a major semester, there are over 8,000 individual section offerings in over 3,400 courses. The Office of the Registrar publishes the Schedule of Classes and Student Academic Information bulletin before registration for each major semester (March for the following Fall, October for the following Spring). The Schedule lists detailed information for each individual course section that is offered, including meeting time and location, instructor, and other information to help guide the student in making course selections.

Indiana University values the freedom it affords students to chart their own path through the wealth of course offerings. Not only can students choose their courses based on subject, but they can also limit their choices based on other factors such as instructor or meeting time and location. In the past, IU has considered adopting computerized student scheduling models and rejected them because they took control over individual schedules away from the students. Undesirable consequences are inherent in this type of course registration process. Although we had tried to address some of these consequences in the past, it was not until a few years ago that a model was developed which successfully melds the institutional priority of giving the student freedom of choice with the need to gather important information about student needs and desires so that the institution can be responsive. The melding of these two needs has resulted in our current registration environment.

Currently, the primary mode of registration for students on the Bloomington campus is Computer Terminal Registration, via a menu-driven application delivered on terminals/work stations using the TCP/IP protocol on the campus network. The application itself runs on the administrative processor (Amdahl 5995) and provides a real-time display of the schedule of classes to the student. In order to aid the student in the building of a viable course schedule, the application offers for selection only those sections that are open and for which the student is eligible to enroll, and highlights sections that create time conflicts with their previously selected sections. In addition to Computer Terminal Registration, students may also choose to register by touch tone phone using the same system described below.



Drop and Add and the Automated Course Exchange (ACE)

Drop and Add has a long history at IU. For as long as students have been given choices when they register for classes, there has been some mechanism in place for them to change their course schedule after they have registered. It was clear from the beginning that Drop and Add was never intended to be an easy process. The following was published in the First Semester 1947­48 Schedule of Classes: "Any change in programs will be very difficult and time consuming. If a change is absolutely necessary report FIRST to the Registrar's Office where necessary blanks and information will be furnished to you." The process was eventually moved to the field house in order to make it more convenient for students and academic staff to negotiate schedule changes.

In 1965, IU was the first large institution in the country to implement telephone registration. Students registered by telephone in May for the following Fall. Those who needed to drop and add were directed to the dean of their school and the department offices during the first week of classes to obtain the necessary authorizations. The system was discontinued after the first semester. Too many students were ill-prepared for advance registration and participation in drop/add was significantly increased. In 1982, IU implemented a new Schedule of Classes system that provided the backbone for the on-line registration system that was implemented in April 1983 for the following Fall semester. Once again, the campus tried to decentralize the drop/add process to the departments during the first week of classes. At the recommendation of representatives from the faculty, students and staff, decentralized drop/add was abandoned once again in favor of the field house process.

Over the years, participation in the field house drop/add process continued to grow. During a major semester, as many as 16,000 students (46% of all registered students) would participate in field house drop/add at the end of the first week of classes. This activity resulted in turning over one third of all credit section enrollments (almost 50,000). Nearly 8,000 students who participated in drop/add successfully would add a course section that was unavailable to them when they originally registered. Almost 4,000 of these students would also drop a section that was closed during Continuing Student Registration. Students urged the University to "find a better alternative to the drop-and-add process." "Students identified difficulty getting the necessary classes and the drop-and-add procedure as challenges to completing their educations on time." (Satisfaction Survey, Bloomington Campus Seniors, Spring 1990, pp. 17, 25) A chairman in the College of Arts and Sciences wrote at the time that "the present system makes a mockery of the entire first week of class, and the amount of abuse and student deception that now occur at Add and Drop are quite literally intolerable."

In addition to the need to stabilize the first week of instruction, those charged with matching instructional resources with the needs of the student body were clamoring for "demand" information. Enrollment managers wanted a way to determine the number of students who would take a section of a course if it were placed on the schedule. Of course, closed course information was available, but there was no data on course demand.

In response to these problems and at the request of faculty and students, a new drop/add system, Automated Course Exchange (ACE), was proposed that would meet the following institutional goals:

prix d'hotel a 5 etoiles Arlandastad - To restore the integrity of the first week of classes by providing greater enrollment stability.

 - To provide students with a mechanism to register not only for courses that are available, but also for courses that have closed.

 - To capture important course demand information to help departments respond to student needs.

 - To eliminate the incentive or the need to conduct a field house drop and add at the end of the first week of classes.

 - To enhance the existing schedule planning tools that are available on the computing network.

 - To place more control over student schedules directly in the hands of the students.

 - To make registration and schedule adjustment (drop and add) easier to understand, convenient, and fair.

 - To eliminate the need for students to access the registration system more than once in order to register for the classes they want.



Automated Course Exchange - Functions

The Automated Course Exchange (ACE) is the result of re-engineering the drop/add process at Indiana University Bloomington. Following the principles of Total Quality Management, the project began with a "clean slate" to address the student and academic requirements of registration and course adjustment and to attempt to meet the stated goals. ACE takes advantage of the features of our Computer Terminal Registration system and is comprised of three major subsystems: 1) Automated Wait lists, 2) Continuous Schedule Adjustment, and 3) Rain checks.


Automated Wait lists:

Students who encounter a closed course or section at the time they register, can register for the wait list. As spaces become available, students on the wait list are automatically placed in the course or section desired in the order in which their names appear on the wait list. Students are notified by electronic mail when their schedules have changed as a result of wait list processing.

The wait list system allows for contingent scheduling. Students can register for an alternate course or section and list that section as a contingent drop on their wait list request. When the wait list request is satisfied, the contingent drop section is automatically removed from their schedule.

Students may place conditions on their wait list requests. Although these conditions may reduce the likelihood of their requests being satisfied, they may request that they be placed in:



Students who have extracurricular commitments may also place time blocks on their schedule. The wait list system will not schedule a class that would result in a conflict with another class or a time block.Academic enrollment managers have access to all wait list information. As students are placed on the course wait lists, the information is captured and is available to enrollment managers and scheduling officers for subsequent analysis. Operational wait list data (e.g., waiting-to- add, waiting-to-drop, etc.) is available in real-time via the administrative processor; in addition, wait list information is captured nightly and made available for analysis and downloading via the administrative Information Center.



Continuous Schedule Adjustment:

Once a student has registered, he or she has continuous access to an enhanced touch tone telephone schedule adjustment system. If circumstances change after they have initially registered, they can call the system and use a touch tone/voice response system to make the necessary schedule adjustments. This access allows students to make necessary changes as soon as they become aware of the need to do so, and limits the students' need to change their classes after the first day of the semester.

If the class a student is trying to add is closed, the schedule adjustment system offers assistance by providing the student the option to register for the wait list or to search for an available seat (in the case of multi-section courses) that will meet their desired restrictions and is free of time-conflicts with their current schedule.



Rain checks:

If a student has an unrestricted wait list request which is still unfulfilled at the conclusion of the first week of classes, they are eligible for a course "rain check". " A rain check is a priority space in the course in the following semester. In designing this feature of ACE, some individuals expressed concern that students would set up their future semester schedule through the use of rain checks. Since rain checks can only be issued to students who have totally unrestricted wait list requests, the fact that they are willing to jeopardize their current schedule reduces the likelihood of abuse of the rain check process.



Automated Course Exchange - Description of the Major Components

A. Automated Wait lists

The Automated Wait list component allows students to request their desired course sections at the time they register, whether or not the section is currently open and/or available to them. By placing themselves on the automated wait list, they are recording their "true" need for course instruction and their commitment to enroll. The wait list system attempts to satisfy the student by matching their request to any "new" or "reserve" seat that becomes available. If the student is successfully placed into a section, we will notify them of the change and encourage them to review their schedule. The system was designed with the idea that the student could "set it and forget it" at the time of original registration; that is, the student is not required to interact with the system once the wait list request is recorded. The following major components makeup the Automated Wait list system.

 Wait list Request Collection - If a student encounters a closed course or section during a registration session (either through the Computer Terminal Registration system or the touch tone phone system), they may request placement on a current term wait list. Students may choose to accept any seat in any section of the course that does not conflict with their schedule or they may choose to attach "wait list restrictions" (preferences) to their request.

Contingent Drop - The student may also submit a "contingent drop" request. This is a request to drop an already-scheduled section, and will be processed if, and only if, the student is successfully registered in the wait listed course. The contingent drop is taken into account when the system calculates "net hours with wait list requests" for the student. Currently, students are not allowed to register for more than 18 semester hours without obtaining special permission. A wait list that does not have a contingent drop attached to it is included in calculating the net hours. This prevents the student from creating false demand information by submitting an unreasonable number of wait list requests.

 Time Blocks - Students may place "time block" restrictions on their schedules to indicate when they would be unavailable to take a class because of extra-curricular obligations (e.g., a work schedule, athletic practice schedule). The wait list system will not schedule students into a class that conflicts with their existing schedule or with any time blocks they have indicated.

Foreground Matching - Lille luxury hotelsOnce the student has entered their wishes, the system will evaluate the request and register the student in any section of the course that: 1) has available seats, 2) does not conflict with the current schedule or time blocks and 3) satisfies their wait list restrictions. If the request cannot be satisfied, the request is time/date stamped (to maintain priority order) and accepted as a wait list request to be evaluated later. Foreground matching will satisfy a student request immediately if possible. This prevents the unintentional addition of a wait list request when the student could be registered and allows the background matching system to limit its search to "new" or "reserve" seats (rather than open seats) during the background matching process.

"Reserve" Seat Processing - As new spaces become available in wait list courses they are "reserved" (i.e. saved) for use by the background matching system. Spaces becomes available throughout the registration and schedule adjustment period: a) as previously-registered students drop courses; b) as departments increase enrollment limits or add sections; c) as student registrations are canceled for administrative or financial reasons; or d) as other wait listed students' contingent drops are processed. All seats that cannot be used by those on the wait list are "returned" to the original course section and, thus, become available to those who have not yet registered.

Background Matching - On each day, from the beginning of registration through the end of the first week of classes, the inventory of reserve seats is "matched" with unsatisfied wait list requests. This matching process is an on-line background CICS transaction that performs like a "batch" process. Successful matches (wait list requests with reserved seats) are saved into an intermediate file for subsequent processing by background registration. Seats made available through contingent drop activity are also evaluated by the matching process. All unsuccessful matches are logged and coded with a failure reason (e.g., no seats available, etc.). The log is accessible via on-line inquiry as a verification tool and to respond to student and academic staff queries. If a problem with matching is discovered, the system has a safety feature which allows the results to be "backed out" and not used.

Background Registration - After each background matching run, the results of the process are verified. If no problems are found, the background registration process is initiated. This background CICS transaction applies the results of the background matching process by formatting the input into our current registration system. The process also returns the unused "reserve" seats to the schedule of classes inventory and makes them available to the entire student population.

Student Notification - Students who have had their schedule modified by the automated wait list system are notified by electronic mail. They are instructed to view their current schedule by using an inquiry version of the Computer Terminal Registration system (available to them on the network) or to call the Touch tone Schedule Adjustment system and listen to their schedule. Students who have satisfied requests are also sent a printed copy of their schedule on a regular basis.

 wait list Information - Academic enrollment managers and scheduling officers have on-line real-time access to wait list information of each course. A detail display of the wait list including the student identification number, academic objective, wait list restriction, contingent drop information and registration attempts can be viewed. If the department wishes, each student on the wait list may be evaluated (prerequisite checking, etc.) for admission to the course prior to allowing the wait list to be processed. The department may also "drop" the student from a wait list. This activity also results in an automatic electronic mail notification to the student.

 Students may also access individual course wait list statistics on the campus computing network. A wait list analysis report is generated each night and made available on the World Wide Web. This report is intended to be used along with other on-line network resources (e.g., detailed course syllabi, on-line advising/degree audit system) as a schedule planning tool.

 Course Management Information - In support of the operational needs of an enrollment manager, the course wait list information represents firm "buy" and "sell" orders from the students and, thus, is a measure of true course "demand". For the first time, the department enrollment manager can make informed decisions and search for appropriate resources (instructional and otherwise) to respond to student demand and can anticipate shifts in enrollment if demand is met.


B. Continuous Schedule Adjustment Continuous and distributed access to the registration and wait list systems are seen as critical to the success of the ACE. Students should not be inhibited from making a desired course change as soon as the need has been identified. Therefore, once a student has registered, he or she has continuous access to an enhanced telephone schedule adjustment system. This Touch tone application mirrors the terminal-based system. Students can call into the system to listen to their schedule to determine whether their placement on the wait list has changed, to drop or add a class, wait list or time block, or to change sections in a course. The Touch tone schedule adjustment system is available to the student immediately after his/her initial registration through the end of the first week of classes. The major components of this system are:

 Registration - Students at Indiana University are accustomed to specifying their section preference with a section number. The quick path through the Touch tone registration system allows the student to specify the section number of the desired course. If the section is open, and the student is otherwise eligible, the student will be enrolled. If the section is canceled or closed the student will be offered System Assistance in obtaining an open seat or placement on the course wait list.

 System Assistance - When a student encounters a section that is closed or canceled, the system determines if there are any available seats in other sections of that course for which the student is eligible. If other seats are available, the student is asked to indicate whether they will accept any section of the course or if they wish to place a restriction (as described above) on the request. The system will log the request and invoke foreground matching (described above) to search for an available seat that will satisfy the request. If the search is successful, the system reports the registered section. If unsuccessful, and the course is wait list eligible, the system creates a wait list request. The use of foreground matching as a registration assistance tool (not required when registering via the terminal system) obviated the need to provide a "list" of open sections to be read to the student.

Section Changes - To change sections of a registered course, the student simply adds the new section. The system will automatically drop the previously registered section of that course.

 Co requisite Processing: Lectures/Labs/Discussions - To add a course which has co requisite members (e.g., lectures, labs, discussions, etc.), students are instructed to select the section which is most important to them. The system will automatically register them in the other co requisites, and will not produce a time conflict.

 Re-enrolling in a "Dropped" Section - A student may re-enroll in a section that has been dropped during the same call. Students simply request the section again as an add. "Drops" are not actually processed until the conclusion of the phone call. Saving the "dropped" seat prevents the student from losing his class choice by dropping a seat in a closed section "by mistake", placing it back into the registration inventory and having another student enroll in it.


C. Rain check

If a student has an unrestricted wait list request that cannot be satisfied by the end of the first week of classes, he or she will receive a priority space in the course the following semester, if it is being offered.

 Rain check "Roll Over" - The Rain check process is, in reality, another iteration of the background matching and background registration components. The population of unsatisfied wait list requests is "rolled over" to a subsequent semester and a "new" primary section number (one that corresponds to the same course and whose time/day meeting pattern is "closest" to the original request) is determined. This new request is processed through background matching and background registration, and uses all available seats rather than just "reserve" seats. Students are then notified of the results and can confirm their enrollment, drop the course, or change sections when they report to registration.


Automated Course Exchange - Implementation and Approach


A. Cultural Change

The successful implementation of ACE represents a significant cultural change at Indiana University. Drop/Add has always been viewed as the ultimate opportunity for enterprising students to parlay their way into closed courses. The old system was an ideal environment for the "squeaky wheel." Students who diligently followed instructions were at a disadvantage because the more aggressive students got into the classes. ACE represents a "levelling of the playing field." Respecting student priority is of paramount importance.

ACE is a response to the University's inability to deal with the volume and complexity of drop/add requests in a manual system which was fraught with errors and inequities. By conducting the process over a more reasonable time period, those who need personal assistance can seek it without competing with those whose requests are straightforward; and that assistance will be delivered in an environment that is conducive to better communication and planning.

Before ACE was implemented, as classes closed during registration, grid lock would set in and careful planning gave way to expediency. Students did the best they could with the courses available to them at the time. But they held out the hope that the classes they needed would become available by the time drop/add took place at the end of the first week of classes. It was not uncommon for a student to completely change his or her schedule at the end of the first week of classes. It was practically impossible to maintain a reasonable semblance of student priority during the day and a half allotted to drop/add. The result was a frantic commodities market in which the commodities are individual course spaces.

Indiana University enjoys a good reputation for providing personal service. ACE provides an opportunity for academic departments to enhance that service while maintaining the basic right of the student to choose their own schedule. We can accomplish this service goal by giving students a chance to record their needs and wishes in a way that will help enrollment managers be more responsive. The field house provided little opportunity to respond to demand in a fair and equitable manner. Decisions made under the pressure of such circumstances were less likely to be as effective as those made after analyzing the information provided by ACE.


B. Piloted over four semesters

ACE was developed with the on-going involvement of faculty, students and other academic staff at IU. Student surveys were conducted. Representatives from student groups participated and contributed to the design of the system. Faculty groups were also involved in the design and in establishing the policies governing the new process. During the development of the system, a periodic newsletter was sent to deans, faculty, advisers and students, informing them of the progress and requesting feedback at critical decision points.

Advisory committees were established with the sole purpose of providing direction to the design and development process. Existing faculty committees were also involved in this process. The student government association, as well as other student organizations participated in the development process and provided important insights into student priorities that needed to be addressed by the system.

Four pilot programs were conducted as part of the development and evaluation of the automated wait list system and the enhanced schedule adjustment system. The participants in these pilot programs evaluated the systems. Their comments and suggestions were incorporated into the final design of the systems.


C. Development Partnership

In order to develop and deploy the base components of ACE successfully, a unique working relationship with our computing center (University Computing Services - UCS) was established. A member of the Office of the Registrar staff worked directly with the development staff and had a work station located at UCS. The tasks of this member of the user organization included: 1) modify the Course Sectioning (Registration) code to accommodate all changes associated with ACE, 2) serve as the technical liaison between the UCS project leader and the Office of the Registrar, and 3) serve as a resource person for UCS developers to define processes and develop specifications. The proximity of the analysts from the different organizations proved to be efficient and productive. Our ability to meet implementation deadlines was largely due to this cooperative arrangement.

The development of the Touch tone Schedule Adjustment System was also successful, due in large part to a partnership between University Computing Services and the Office of the Registrar. The system consists of two pieces: 1) the voice response application that interacts with the student caller, and 2) the "host" or mainframe components that evaluates course requests and updates registration and wait list files. The Office of the Registrar was responsible for script development and coding while UCS was primarily responsible for the mainframe components.

The development partnership that was successfully established as part of this Automated Course Exchange project continues today.


D. Hardware/Software

The Automated wait list system was developed on an Amdahl 5995 processor running MVS/ESA and CICS 2.1.2. The applications themselves were written in VS COBOL II, CICS with VSAM file structures. wait list request processing was incorporated into an existing terminal registration system that is connected to the mainframe via TCP/IP Telnet connections to a set of SUN work stations. The Sun work stations automatically convert the Telnet sessions to TN3270 sessions. Remote TCP/IP access to the administrative platform is managed using ACCESS/MVS from Interlink.

The voice response equipment was purchased from Brite Voice Systems (formerly known as Perception Technology Inc.) and is configured as follows: 2 VMS (VAX 3100) application processors, 1 BT-III Voice Response Peripheral, 2 BT-II Voice Response Peripherals, and a DECnet/SNA Gateway-CT. The system has a 144 telephone line capacity. The Touch tone Schedule Adjustment system was developed using WRITE1 software developed by Touch Talk, Inc. The network protocol for the voice response equipment is DECNET.


Automated Course Exchange - Efficiencies

The implementation of ACE has resulted in the creation of efficiencies in the registration and scheduling process. The elimination of the field house operation at the beginning of each major semester has resulted in the ability of the University to re-deploy valuable resources that had been tied up in field house administrative activity, to tasks that more directly support the instructional mission of the University. Although it is difficult to put an actual dollar amount on the resources that have been made available, some estimates have indicated the value at greater than $84,000 annually. These estimates do not include a valuation of the time saved by students (nor the instruction lost), who spent up to a day-and-a-half in the field house, as they attempted to put together their ideal schedule. Unfortunately, the value of such time wasted is difficult to assess or to recover.

Likewise, other financial benefits of ACE are difficult to assess. The haphazardness of the old field house process produced inefficiencies in filling up courses. The nature of the field house process was such that it was not unusual for students to present themselves at the last minute to drop popular courses, too late for the vacant spaces to be re-assigned to others who wanted to get into the class. As a result of ACE processing, not only are popular courses filled to capacity, but additional sections are added or spaces made available because the demand is known, giving the departments and schools a guarantee that there will be sufficient enrollment to justify the expense. For example, during a recent registration period, the School of Business offered a new general interest course for the first time and did their best to anticipate the demand. The course quickly closed, and the demand as indicated by the wait list was overwhelming. The school almost doubled the enrollment in the course by adding additional sections. In fact, more than 10% of the enrollments in School of Business courses resulted from the successful processing of wait list requests.

The deans also anticipate that credit hour production and income will be increased as a result of their response to the demand. Although many of the wait list requests include a contingent drop, it has become clear that students also submit requests that appear to be discretionary. If these requests are satisfied, a net increase in the number of credit hours enrolled results. The attached page, ACE WATCH, summarizes the results of ACE processing for First Semester 1995-96 in light of the original goals that were established by the campus community.



 ACE WATCH2

ACE has accomplished the goals established by the University community for First Semester 1995-96.

GOALS
RESULTS
Restore the integrity of the first week of classes by providing greater enrollment stability and facilitating the beginning of instruction on the first day of classes. 70% of all schedule adjustment activity since April occurred before the first day of classes.65% reduction in class changes during the first week of classes compared to last year. (42,284 changes last year) (14,973 changes this year)
Provide students with a mechanism to register not only for courses that are available, but also for courses that have closed. 86% of the 11,303 active wait list requests were satisfied.10,776 wait list requests were submitted before the first day of classes.
Capture important course demand information to help departments respond to student needs and expectations. 795 courses (out of more than 3,500) had wait list activity (drops or adds).Some departments satisfied up to 98% of their wait list requests by adding additional sections or otherwise increasing enrollment limits.
Eliminate the need to conduct a field house drop and add at the end of the first week of classes. field house drop and add was eliminated this semester.
Enhance the existing schedule planning tools that are available on the computing network. Students now have access to their own personal schedules and the entire schedule of course offerings via the computing network.Daily wait list activity information and course descriptions for most courses are available on the World Wide Web.
Place more control over student schedules directly in the hands of the students. wait list flexibility allows students to submit wait list preferences according to time, instructor or other variables.54% of all students have taken advantage of continuous Touch tone telephone access to hear, and in some cases to adjust, their schedules.
Make registration and schedule adjustment easier to understand, convenient and fair. Touch tone telephone access to registration and schedule adjustment make the process convenient and easy to understand.wait list priority is maintained according to the date and time of the wait list request (which can be as early as the student's registration appointment).
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