BAYBAY CITY, Leyte – The long awaited online registration has finally come into fruition as it officially operates on the first semester of AY 2018-2019.
Mr. Norman Villas of the University Computer Center (UCC) said in an interview that student feedbacks for this year’s enrolment has mostly been positive due to the integration of enrolment online.
“There isn’t much hassle because the students no longer need their advisers’ signature on their permit. Some students were even joking if the physical exam could also be made online,” Mr. Norman Villas of the University Computer Center (UCC) quipped.
Mariannie Bornasal, junior BSEd student majoring in Biological Science, happily revealed that the she did not have a hard time enrolling because of the online registration.
“I got officially enrolled in three hours. The online enrolment requires less hassle and even lesser time. It’s a big help for students who still need to wait for their academic advisers who may be attending seminars or travels. We also no longer need to submit grades to our departments because these are readily available in the portal. No more overloading since it automatically limits the number of units. It’s convenient for students who live far from VSU.”
Following the successful operation of online enrolment also known as cumulus one, the old paper-registration method was still made available for everyone with a number of Viscans still opting for it.
“I didn’t register online because it was uncertain for me. There is a 2-day expiration, I was afraid my subjects will get withdrawn,” Daisy Maturan, a sophomore BS Agribusiness student, said.
The integration of enrolment online was first announced by the VSU President Dr. Edgardo E. Tulin during his first State of the University Address (SUA) in 2016.
It was first proposed during the term of former VSU President Dr. Jose Bacusmo. However, the series of approvals and the integration of online payment made the wait longer.
“We had to go through a lot of approvals to modify the enrolment process. Presently, the biggest challenge are the protocols VSU has to follow to make online payment possible. Luckily, the free tuition was implemented and we were now able to push through with the online registration. As of now, we are conducting benchmarking to see how they [companies] conduct these [online payment]. We might tap money transfer services in the future for this,” Villas said.
Common problems
Despite a pleased response from the student body, however, problems aroused that made the operation online tedious especially for the team manning the operations.
The most common issue was recovering accounts in the student portal.
“A lot of the students forgot their accounts’ usernames and passwords. For this, we have a feature to reset account via email. However, some students also forgot their email. Fortunately, we have the Web Team to help us. They helped recover accounts of those who asked assistance through the VSU Facebook page.”
The change in curriculum have also posed a problem for a number of students. To aid this, the feature restricting entrance to subjects with prerequisite courses was temporarily disabled.
“The registrar has yet organized all subjects because of the change in curriculum. BS in Agriculture students particularly experienced difficulties on this. We temporarily disabled the feature on this. We are checking the subjects before approval so rest assured that no one enrolled in any subject without their prerequisites,” Villas said.
To complete the “paperless” enrolment, Mr. Villas and his team is currently prioritizing the integration of online payment to make the entire registration process easier.
“We are continuously developing and improving the online enrollment to hopefully integrate online payment. We are open for suggestions from the student body and we will listen to those,” Villas said.