The fight for classes at Sacramento State has begun, but this semester, students and faculty won’t deal with CasperWeb. Instead they will use the new MySacState application to register for classes.

Sac State students are echoing confusion when registering for classes next year using MySacState, though some of the new features that were not available on CasperWeb are receiving positive feedback since registration began on April 23.

MySacState, a Peoplesoft enterprise that has applications designed to address the most complex business requirements, began as an initiative from the California State University’s chancellor’s office to create a consistent program used throughout the colleges, Jeanette Norton, Common Management Systems director said. The program is to replace CasperWeb completely by fall, she said.

Norton said MySacState is a self-service tool for students and faculty and is easy to navigate.

“It’s pretty straightforward,” she said.

Norton said the new website has beneficial features such as an expanded degree audit capability where students who wanted to change their majors could try a “what if” feature, real-time posting of fees and the capability of handling seven times more users than CasperWeb.

Other college campuses have already begun using a program similar to MySacState. Fresno State’s website is called MyFresnoState. It has the same contents as MySacState, only the information provided is appropriate to Fresno State, according to its website.

MySacState operates 24 hours a day and seven days a week, Norton said. She said the operating hours for CasperWeb were what students raised concerns about in the past.

Danh Nguyen, a senior nursing major, said he likes the new 24 hours and seven days feature, especially when registering for classes.

The new application also has a waitlist functionality that Nguyen loves.

“You go up a spot when someone drops, so it’s fair. There’s actually a waiting list started already,” he said.

Brian Bernardino, a senior graphic design student, said registering for classes took more effort this time.

“Our previous site, CasperWeb, surpasses MySacState in usability 1,000 percent. I seriously think we should go back to CasperWeb,” he said.

Ryan Nanca, a senior digital media major, said the class schedules are awkwardly arranged.

“I think it’s too cluttered and should be brought down and made simpler,” Nanca said.

Other students, like senior graphics design major, Cecilia Baldwin, said they like viewing their class schedule.

“I like being able to view my schedule right away in a grid format,” she said.

Nguyen said it was confusing when he was registering for classes two weeks ago because it wasn’t user-friendly.

“First of all, it doesn’t list everything right away, the high-technology graphics make it longer to load and you can’t look for classes while you’re adding classes,” he said.

Nguyen said the application probably has more benefits, but is something students have to get use to.

Kevan Shafizadeh, civil engineering professor, said overall, the new website works fine.

“I did have problems trying to find the schedule of a class for next semester, but it seems fine so far,” Shafizadeh said.

Jeanie M. Allan, a graduate academic counselor for business, said the new website is a slow process, but the people from CMS have been doing a great job letting the university know what’s going on.

“It’s just a lot for you to learn. I’ve been to six trainings for the program,” she said.

Allan said the best thing for her about the new program is that she has easy access to students’ e-mails because, with CasperWeb, she had to look for it and then insert it herself for an e-mail.

Norton said there are tutorials available for students and faculty on the CMS website. The tutorials provide screenshots of the website and can answer questions that students may have. She encourages students and faculty to take advantage of the tutorials.

Over time, Norton believes students will become familiar with the site, just as with CasperWeb, and said that it’s ultimately a better program.

“We have no concerns for MySacState,” she said.

For more information about MySacState, visit the CMS website at www.csus.edu/cms. For tutorials, www.csus.edu/cms/training/mysacstate/index.stm.

Gia Vang can be reached at [email protected]