Students won’t be able to access the spring semester schedule of classes until Sept. 21.

“There are some lingering challenges in tweaking the schedule to get it right,” University Registrar Glenn Davis said.

Registration for spring semester has also been delayed and won’t begin until Oct. 17, about one week later than usual, due to continuing construction of the new FlashFAST Banner Web site. The new site will replace Web For Students as the site for online registration.

“At the beginning of the Banner project, we developed a calendar that set normal registration to begin in October,” Davis said. “It was recently determined that it would begin closer to the middle of October instead.”

Susan Cole, associate university registrar, said the schedule of classes is typically available two weeks before registration.

“Because registration has been delayed, the course list is actually available earlier than normal,” she said.

Honors students, athletes and students with disabilities will be the first to register Oct. 17. Registration for seniors will begin the following Monday.

“Registration is now broken down by hours instead of alphabetically,” Cole said. “Seniors with the greatest number of hours will register first and so on.”

Students can access their hours and corresponding registration dates on the registrar’s site.

Lin Danes, manager of electronic communication and Web content services, said the delay in scheduling is also a result of continued testing for usability of the site.

“We see how students try to find something on the site and if they follow the path we expect them to,” Danes said, “then we can isolate and repair the trends we start to notice after about five students have been tested.”

Cole said later registration may even prove beneficial. By Oct. 17, freshmen will have received their midterm grades and will have a better idea of what they can take spring semester, she said.

Cole said the registration process typically began early in the semester to allow time for manual scheduling done over the phone. Increased technology and a new registration site now makes the process faster.

Davis described FlashFAST, which stands for Faculty Adviser and Student Tools, as “a familiar roadmap that’s been tailored a little bit better for students to access.”

Danes said the most obvious change will be the student tools tab, which will replace the WFS tab on FlashLine.

“The new channels and links will deliver you more quickly to the resources you need,” she said.

During the switch, links will direct users to either the old or new site depending on where the information is located, Danes said.

Contact student affairs reporter Kristine Gill at [email protected].