BannerWeb: A Crash Course

For college students across the country, class registration is a high-stress, high-stakes time of year. Not only do we have to pick the classes we want to take, we have to successfully register for them. Inevitably, around registration time, complaints and frustrations about BannerWeb and class registration flood the College. With J-term registration this past week and Spring Term registration fast approaching, familiar questions arise surrounding BannerWeb’s inevitable crashing and what we can do about it.

In the past few years, many J-term students have experienced BannerWeb crashing when they try to register, leaving them locked out of the system and unable to register. During registration this past week, many students, like Rachel Kinney ’16.5, found themselves locked out of registration for several minutes, causing frustration, stress and impatience.

“Although BannerWeb was only frozen for about 10 minutes, it seemed like a long time to worry about whether I would get into the class I wanted,” said Kinney.

As of now, it is impossible to say why the system failed, but Michael Roy, dean of Library Information Services (LIS) and his team are working to diagnose the problem with the vendor of BannerWeb, Ellucian.

According to Roy, problems usually seen with BannerWeb “appear to be associated with the volume of simultaneous requests being submitted to the system.”

But last week’s registration for J-Term was worse than usual.

“We are very disappointed with the performance of the BannerWeb course registration system this week and we apologize to students for the frustration they have experienced,” said Roy. “We do not yet have a definitive answer as to why the system locked up during times of peak usage.”

It is not just students who find fault with BannerWeb — Professor of Mathematics Frank Swenton is disappointed with the system as well.

“Given the multiple millions of dollars that Middlebury has spent on the Banner system,” he said, “including the initial purchase, presumably yearly costs, and a huge amount of staff time spent on it, I take it as completely unacceptable that our online registration has had such major and consistent problems.”

According to Swenton, Ellucian, BannerWeb’s vendor, should be paying penalties each time it crashes. Swenton pointed to outsourcing as one of the main problems.

“The fault here is essentially with the Banner system, over which we have limited control – this is unfortunately part of the game the College plays when outsourcing to outside companies,” he said.

Is BannerWeb the best option for a class registration system? Prior to using BannerWeb, the College used a self-made system for registration; however, this system presented many drawbacks, prompting the switch to an outside system, BannerWeb. For the past 10 years, the College has used BannerWeb with fewer problems than the previous system had.

Though countless colleges and universities across the country use BannerWeb, many institutions of higher learning have chosen other methods of registering for classes. Colgate University, with about 2,800 undergraduates, staggers and rotates registration based on last name. For example, a student with a last name beginning with letters E through G might get to register first with all other students in that category, but the next semester they would rotate two spots and register third, then fifth, then second, etc. Alexander Flagle, a sophomore at Colgate, does not find this system effective.

“It has crashed both times I have used it, and many people think registration is the most stressful time of the year,” he said.

At the University of Maryland, with 26,000 undergraduates, students register based on the number of credits they have.

Sophomore Samara Cohen has found drawbacks to this system, saying, “Many people complain about the system because they get shut out of popular classes.”

This system gives priority to upperclassmen, meaning that first-years and sophomores often do not have the chance to register for more popular classes.

Perhaps a revert to the student-to-professor method of registration could be the best solution. Professor Swenton thinks it could be worth a try.

“Was Arena Registration really that bad?  Yes, students found it to be sometimes stressful — but faculty and advisors were there to answer questions, and yes, there were a lot of people, but Middlebury College is about people,” said Swenton. “Is it really better for our students’ first experience of course registration at Middlebury College to be hovering over their computers clicking furiously?  Is that what we’re really about at this institution, or are we about student-faculty interaction, a place where people interact with other people to build as strong a learning environment as possible?”

Despite the problems seen in other registration systems, it is possible that those could be an improvement over BannerWeb. By using registration windows, it might be possible to avoid a crash caused by the influx of log-ins. Though this change could put students with a later registration time at a disadvantage, it might still be an improvement over BannerWeb.

As one student pointed out to Professor Swenton, “Is it really better for things to be determined by crashes and who can click their mouse at 7:00:01 instead of 7:00:02?”

The College will continue to use BannerWeb as its system for registering, is there anything an individual student can do to improve their registration odds? A common piece of advice is to take a deep breath and understand not getting everything on your class wish list is not the end of the world. In fact, many students may end up taking something unexpected and really enjoying it, only because they could not register for a class that was originally on their ideal schedule.

Second, having plenty of back-up options at the ready is essential. If one is unable to get into a popular class because of BannerWeb, preparedness with a second, third, fourth, and fifth option can earn a well-prepared student with a spot in a second-choice class.

Another precaution that is worth taking is e-mailing professors in advance.

“Most professors are pretty understanding when it comes to registration, especially if you contact them ahead of time,” said Sierra Stites ’14.

Getting on the wait-list for a class in advance or just conveying interest to the professor of a class can never hurt when BannerWeb remains so unpredictable.