A glitch in the HomerConnect system allowed 140 sophomore students to register for fall 2009 semester classes one day early. No further problems or changes have been reported in the registration process.

An unidentified malfunction in the system occurred April 15 that permitted students who were supposed to register last Thursday to select their classes on April 15. The error was the only reported problem during the registration period, which began April 13.

Ithaca College Registrar Brian Scholten said staff members noticed an unusually large number of students logged into the system and filled course sections the morning of April 15.

“We have people who look at registration in the morning right when it’s starting to make sure it’s working,” he said. “When we looked closely at it, that’s when we realized students who should have been registering the next day had a chance to register.”

Students without enough corresponding credits were blocked from the system once staff members from the Registrar’s office realized there was a problem. Scholten said students were blocked until their original assigned registration time.

“Our office did not remove any of the students from the classes [they had already registered for],” he said. “It was left up to the schools and the dean’s offices to determine if they needed to take some of those students out of classes.”

Scholten said this is the first glitch the college has experienced with registration since the college began using Homer and HomerConnect systems in fall 2006. In November 2006, The Ithacan reported two incidents in which Homer allowed students to register early.

Sophomore Devin Colter said he was one of the students able to log onto the system and register for his classes on April 15. Colter said his assigned registration day was last Thursday.

“[Tuesday night] I saw five or six people who are in the same grade as me with Facebook statuses saying, ‘Waking up early to register for classes,’” he said. “Because of that, I decided I better see if I can do that too, because I don’t want to risk not getting into my classes.”

Colter said he heard there had been a malfunction in the system on Wednesday afternoon after he had registered. He said he continuously checked HomerConnect to see if he was still registered for his classes.

He said he was removed from his Advanced Cinema Production: Fiction class, a requirement for his major, when he returned from work that evening.

“I was upset, but at the same time, I can understand being in the other position and not being able to get into this class when you’re supposed to have priority,” he said. “I’m more upset that they only have one section of this class that they are requiring people to take, and they are only taking 15 people this semester.”

Scholten said the malfunction with HomerConnect was collegewide and did not involve students exclusively from one school or department.

Judith Barker, associate professor and chair of the Department of Sociology, said her department encountered registration problems separate from the incident April 15 that were resolved internally.

Once the initial registration process is over, Scholten said he meets with the associate and assistant deans of all of the college’s schools and staff from the Office of the Registrar to discuss the problems they encountered and ways to improve the system.

“We don’t rest on our laurels,” he said. “We are always looking for ways to make [the system] better.”