Syracuse University’s online registration Web site is causing controversy on campus.

Computer and Media Services launched a new online registration service in October called MySlice to replace CMS’s previous online registration service, Student-Centered Online Records Environment. Not everyone agrees, however, that MySlice is an improvement over S.C.O.R.E.

Pete McNamee, a freshman majoring in political science and policy studies, like many students, had difficulty using MySlice. McNamee ended up enrolling in classes he did not want to take because of MySlice-related problems, McNamee said.

‘It’s really ineffective and really hard to use,’ McNamee said. ‘It could be a little more user friendly.’

In contrast, Jodi Accuri, a sophomore and a transfer student in the College of Arts and Sciences, did not have difficulty with MySlice.

‘My old school wasn’t very technological, so this is sweet to me,’ Accuri said.

The inability to use browser buttons, such as the back button, with MySlice is a contentious issue among the student body.

‘You can’t use the back button, which is retarded,’ McNamee said. ‘You have to start all over again by pressing home.’

Accuri, however, did not judge the inactivity of browser buttons as a serious problem.

‘It was annoying sometimes but I got used to it,’ Accuri said.

CMS will not be making any efforts to reprogram MySlice to allow the use of browser buttons to navigate through a Web site, said Deborah Nosky, manager of client support and information for CMS.

‘Trying to tie in MySlice into a particular browser would be difficult,’ Nosky said. ‘We are leaving the navigation in MySlice alone.’

CMS will try, however, to get PeopleSoft, the company that programmed MySlice, to reprogram MySlice to be compatible with other Internet browsers, such as Firefox and Safari.

MySlice was not programmed for compatibility with internet browsers besides Internet Explorer initially because Internet Explorer makes up 91 percent of all Internet traffic, Nosky said.

Until PeopleSoft reprograms MySlice, CMS instituted a fix for MySlice to allow compatibility with Safari, Nosky said.

‘It doesn’t work 100 percent of the time, but we are very confident it will work by April,’ Nosky said.

Published on January 25, 2005 at 12:00 pm