The SABRE system will be unavailable from now until Oct. 13 as upgrades are being performed before registration for the spring ‘06 semester.
SABRE, the Internet system that allows students to register online for classes rather than filling out bubble sheets at Buffalo State College, has been on campus since the summer and fall registration period of 2003.
The latest version of SABRE is called “R-6” from the Oracle Corporation who is the manufacturer of the product. There will be no changes which will jump out at students, but some changes in the upgrade may benefit students.
“We take it down before every big registration for spring or fall,” said
Don Erwin, implementation project manager for SABRE. “Just to prepare for registration we have to get all the new sections and courses in there and get all the rules and pre-requisites for the courses in.”
There will be a new way of dealing with the waitlist for the coming registration, as students who may be waitlisted at the top might not be first picked to get into the opening for that class.
“One problem before this release was if a student at the top of the waitlist could not get in, it would clog the waitlist,” Erwin said. “That no longer happens. If somebody at the top is clogging the waitlist and someone below them is not clogging the waitlist, they will jump over them.”
It will now be important for students to watch the amount of credit hours they have, waitlisted or actual courses.
Erwin hopes the system can become more user-friendly in the future than it is right now. He said there are lots of behind the scenes work going on to improve such a complex system.
Starting in the spring, there will be a pilot project which will be unveiled for fall registration in 2006. When SABRE took over the old system, advisement was technically required but there was no way to make sure every student was being advised.
This pilot project will be tested on a small group of students and expand more every semester, giving advisors the ability to not allow a student to register if they have not been seen by him/her. This would allow an advisor to place a hold on the students’ account which could only be removed by the advisor once the student has gone through advisement.
Erwin went on to say that SABRE is laying down the foundation for future semesters and future upgrades. SABRE could be the main source for all student records as soon as next fall.
Contact Paul Brunskole at BrunPJ08@mail.buffalostate.edu |
