With a series of changes to the Web site, the ACES focus group hopes it has played a royal flush.
The group, composed of members of Duke Student Government and the Graduate and Professional Student Council and directed by Assistant Vice Provost Kathy Pfeiffer, has been working with the Student Information Services and Systems Office and the University Registrar to enhance the site since the Fall.
Following the introduction of the new ACES site over the summer, the focus group suggested improvements to the system that were implemented before registration in October. But this is the most significant batch of changes yet, said junior Chelsea Goldstein, DSG's vice president for academic affairs and a member of the focus group.
"DSG thought ACES sucked just as much as everyone else," she said. "We have made a ton of changes. I think the most important changes are the changes to the way classes are listed. We added a lot more essential information to the class listing so you don't have to click 200 million times, and we've also made it so sections are not listed individually."
In particular, students had complained that they found the permission number process to be confusing, University Registrar Bruce Cunningham wrote in an e-mail.
Per the focus group's suggestions, students mulling over classes for the Fall can place courses in their bookbags with fewer clicks; permission numbers and prerequisites are indicated in the bookbag display if they are required; the validity of the permission number is verified upon entry; course evaluations and synopses are visible atop the course summary display; schedules and bookbags are on display with the class search tool; and class searches return all courses meeting the entered requirements.
DSG representatives had strong opinions about how the site could be more useful, but the SISS staff had some reservations about the proposals' feasibility at first, Goldstein said. She added, however, that the focus group accomplished a great deal and noted that the SISS Office is finalizing improvements to be debuted for summer registration.
"[The SISS employees] are really great to work with-they just eat up all of our suggestions, and they really work hard," said focus group member Sara Salahi, a graduate student studying biomedical engineering. "They are the best administrators on campus to work with. This is one of those groups on campus where I feel like student input is extremely valued, and they make things happen according to what students say."
The SISS Office shared the students' proposals with Oracle, the company that manufactures the ACES software, and the executives were so impressed that they are considering incorporating the improvements into the standard product, Cunningham said.
The ACES focus group will continue to meet each semester before class registration begins, and Goldstein said members welcome feedback on how to further enhance the site.
In the coming months, students can also expect to see improvements to the Office of Financial Aid's Web site and the STORM system. Although STORM is used by faculty, improvements to the site have the potential to impact students as well, Goldstein said. A focus group of faculty members has been commissioned to improve the site, Cunningham said.
"If a professor doesn't understand how to use STORM, your grades are late, you can't access the permission number for a course and your professor is in a bad mood all day," Goldstein said.
When the new ACES site was introduced last Fall, Goldstein said she received as many as 200 e-mails a day from students complaining about the changes. Goldstein has not heard any response since bookbagging opened last week, but she is confident the site will ace students' expectations.
"I feel like no feedback is good feedback with ACES," she said.
Junior Piarget Johnson said he has not been able to detect any changes to the ACES site and feels that bookbagging still takes him much longer than it should.
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