Nothing But Net
By The Amherst Student Editorial Board
The Information Age has been upon us long enough that everyone is bored with the term, and the College is rushing to keep pace with technology. The most recent SGO elections were held exclusively online. Several students and faculty have also expressed the desire to move registration online, obviating the tedious trips for administrative minutiae that are currently necessary.

Online voting didn't reduce voter turnout significantly from last year, but there were some problems with it. It's easy to forget to vote online, whereas Valentine voting is hard to miss. Several students also had problems with the authentication system, although it's possible that might be fixed by the next vote. The best solution, of course, would be to offer both online voting and Valentine voting; however, if it's impossible to guard against duplication of votes in such a system, it'd be better to keep our old system of card-swiping than to continue voting online. The physical presence of the ballot will do more for voter turnout than online voting, which is always available but out of sight.

Online registration is a trickier issue because of the need for advisor approval and the fact that various parts of it could be put online separately. We would oppose any system that would discourage students from talking to their advisors about their course schedules. However, we can expedite the registration process by automating part of it without sacrificing the student-advisor relationship.

Busy faculty schedules and restricted hours at the registrar's office can make the trivial details of course selection time-consuming and irksome. If we allow students to post their course schedules to the registrar online, but require advisor approval (online or by normal means) for the registrar to accept those schedules, we cut out all the logistical gymnastics and pointless waiting that often accompany the gathering of advisor signatures. Advisors would still retain the sole ability to approve students' schedules, so whatever relationship the current system enforces between students and advisors will not be lost. Whether that's sufficient is a different topic.

The basic principle here is, online is good for some things but not for everything. Some administrative processes that currently require physical forms are worth automating-for example, room group choice and opt-out forms for room draw. But some processes, such as room draw itself and voting in College elections, simply lend themselves better to completion offline.

Issue 06, Submitted 2000-10-18 00:39:36