After facing initial technical difficulties with a new online platform, Room Pix '07 proceeded smoothly, Residence Life and Housing Officials said Monday.
The entire process-which RLHS was forced to conduct in person after facing major glitches to a new online system implemented this year-was completed Sunday night.
"It went pretty well considering we had to recreate it all in a matter of 48 hours," said Marijean Williams, director of housing assignments and communications. "Most students were very understanding and did what they needed to do to complete their Room Pix."
The slowdown of the online interface was due to complications with background software processes and not a server problem, as officials previously suspected, Williams added.
"It's not just a Duke thing," she said. "There are 12 other schools using the [same] online process and they've experienced the same difficulties."
RLHS is currently working with Residential Management Systems-the company that developed the platform on which Room Pix '07 ran-to fix the problems and have Room Pix proceed online next year, Williams said.
Like the current freshman class, incoming freshmen will fill out their housing applications online, Williams said.
"We ran the process last year and ran into some bumps but managed to resolve them all," she said. "I'm looking forward to using it for this summer."
Many students said they were not affected by the switch from the online to the face-to-face process.
"It went better than I expected," sophomore Vincent Ling said. "It was hectic at first with the whole online process, but once I got there it went just as smoothly as last year."
Students were divided on whether or not they would prefer to complete Room Pix online in the future.
"In-person is better-if you personally had a computer problem then you can't do much to fix it," freshman Kyndal Thomas said.
Triple-room residents were able to successfully conduct their Room Pix process online before the interface was shut down.
"It was very convenient," said junior Andrew Harkins, who is living in a triple room next year. "Everything went very smoothly for us."
One common complaint among students, however, was a lack of correspondence from the RLHS office to students regarding Room Pix updates.
"They didn't do a good job communicating with us, we got a lot of last minute e-mails," Ling said.
He added that resident assistants did not hand out information sheets until after students were supposed to register.
"That's messed up," Ling said.
Freshman Elizabeth Rojas said she found the Room Pix website unorganized.
"The website is awful," she said. "It is not very clear and the [room locator] updater was not working. I think it's something they can definitely improve."
In addition to technical problems with the online system, this year was the first time juniors who requested single rooms were unable to get them, Williams said.
A total of nine female students and two male students did not get single rooms.
"The rising junior class is the largest class Duke has seen in a while and it's something that affects housing every year," Williams said.
Because rising sophomores are required to live on West Campus, each year some juniors who wish to remain on West are unable to do so and must move to Central Campus, she added.
Approximately 400 juniors, including those in selective living groups, are living in doubles on West next year, Williams said, noting that in contrast to previous years, double rooms on West remained available for juniors for over half of the selection process. "We were expecting juniors who were picking in the first round to take all the West doubles," Williams said.
She added that doubles for female rising juniors remained open until the third of the six rounds, and the fourth of the six rounds for male students.
"A lot [of students] were choosing to live on Central Campus individually, which is a little uncommon," she said. "I'd like to think it's because of the information we sent out to students that helped them make those decisions."
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