The University’s Student Information System is no stranger to criticism. During the 2016-17 academic year, my fellow Opinion columnists have written numerous articles talking about the need to improve SIS, whether this be through rebuilding it or by promoting third-party platforms. It is no secret SIS is a much-maligned system to operate. Numerous tools such as Lou’s List, theCourseForum and UVASchedule exist to simplify administrative tasks as simple as viewing details for classes or preparing a class schedule. The need for students to rely on third-party programs due to SIS’s confusing and unintuitive layout is a sign that SIS requires a significant redesign.
Due to SIS’s confusing layout, seemingly-important information is too often hidden from the user. For a student to view their exam schedule — which conveys vital information on exam times, dates and location — one must first navigate to the “Enroll” tab, select “Term Information” and then click “View My Exam Schedule.” As the primary purpose of the “Enroll” tab is to enroll in classes when the enrollment period is open, students will rarely access this tab — a first-time user of SIS might expect to find his or her exam schedule under the “My Academic” tab instead. Viewing one’s position on a waitlist is just as archaic. Students must first access their weekly schedule — which defaults to Weekly Calendar View — and then change the display option to “List View,” after which users can view their schedule for future semesters.
SIS’s help pages are similar to SIS in their inability to relay important information to readers. In order to view one’s exam schedule, SIS’s help pages tell the user to follow the steps previously mentioned. However, they neglect to inform the reader that he or she can actually access exam schedules from the main page — this option is hidden in a drop-down menu and never mentioned by SIS support. Furthermore, the SIS Help Center provides tips on checking grades; yet, the center never actually tells the user how to view grades, nor does it tell the user that he or she can easily find grades through Collab (incidentally, one can view grades in the same location where he or she can view exam schedules).
SIS also suffers from a lack of customizability and redundancy; users who have specific parts of SIS that they often visit cannot place them on the main page for ease of access. Although SIS offers basic accessibility options under “My Personalizations,” this is the only option available. Users attempting to change waitlisted discussion or lab periods are unable to do so while remaining in the same lecture period. As noted by the SIS Help Center: “If you want to remain in the same lecture, there is no way to make this change without being added to the end of the wait lists for both components.” Perhaps most importantly, SIS has a tendency to crash during enrollment periods, leaving students — especially first years — unable to immediately enroll in their desired classes.
There is no doubt that SIS has significant room for improvement. The fact that students must rely on third-party sites to easily access course descriptions or create schedules is a clear indicator of this. Reliance on third-party sites brings with it its own slew of issues. There is no guarantee that such sites will always be accessible, and sites such as UVASchedule rely on ad revenue to operate. This renders them vulnerable to the practice of malvertising — the “seeding of malicious code in online advertisements to infect unsuspecting users.” SIS needs an overhaul in terms of readability and accessibility, and its help pages should also be updated to clearly illustrate these changes to users. By doing so, the University can make accessing SIS a more understandable and accessible system for all of its users.
William Wong is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
Read More
EDITORIAL: Celebrating and reflecting on The Cavalier Daily’s independence
By Editorial Board | 5 days agoOur independence grants us the ability to ask the hard questions and to say what University representatives cannot.
ARRAS: U.Va. must revise the Sexual Assault Prevention Training module
By Aoife Arras | April 17, 2024In addition to its failures in interactivity, the module lacks details specific to the University and discusses key concepts in universal terms.
EDITORIAL: Pedestrian safety is an institutional imperative
By Editorial Board | April 15, 2024Amid a national crisis of pedestrian safety, Charlottesville and the University are also struggling to properly maintain pedestrian safety.
