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Novo means “new” in Latin. This August marked not only a new school year, but also the birth of a revamped class registration system. The Office of the Registrar and student government collaborated over the past year to develop NOVO, the improved system. Standing for “New Organization Via Online registration,” NOVO is intended to be a simpler registration process, one that Chuck Hurley, university registrar, says will be more intuitive and user-friendly. The NOVO system boasts three main improvements from the old DART system: the “schedules” feature, a new “browse classes” feature, and the “conditional add/drop” feature. Hurley emphasized that these improved tools stemmed from student feedback through the Office of the Registrar’s collaboration with student government.

The “schedules” tab allows the user to see past and current schedules on a weekly grid. In addition, the “browse classes” feature is more accessible than “class search” was, and allows students to use keywords and phrases in their search. Finally, a third feature called “conditional add/drop” was added to allow allows students to simultaneously drop a class and switch into a new class. This was implemented in order to eliminate the possibility of losing a spot in either class while dropping the old class and registering for the new one, a common problem with the old DART system. 

Feedback from current students suggests that the NOVO system, overall, is an improvement from DART. “Student government deserves a lot of credit for this. It makes all the difference in the world when students participate in the process like this,” Hurley says. The Office of the Registrar and student government are committed to continuing testing and improving the system after registration in November in order to make the system even more user-friendly for students.