Last-minute schedule changes can be hectic for students who have to wait in long lines, but in the future, these changes can be made by telephone from anywhere in the world.

NIU is now developing software which will one day enable the installation of a telephone registration system. Instead of braving the lines in the Holmes Student Center’s Duke Ellington Ballroom, students will be able to call NIU from any touch-tone phone in the world and add, drop or change their schedule without ever coming to campus.

The phone registration system, called TeleStudent, started at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Doug Bell, a registration representaive there, said all but 100 of Brigham Young’s 27,000 students use the system to sign up for classes.

Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, with an enrollment of 4,700, also uses the system. Andy Westley, a transfer student to Bradley, first registered for classes from a pay phone on campus—at Bradley the phone system is the only way to register. Westley said it took about five minutes to complete his schedule.

Ruth Jass, registrar at Bradley University, said the phone system can register students for classes in an average time of less than four minutes.

The student dials a number which gives him access to the university’s mainframe computer. Once access is gained, the student hears instructions from a computer-generated voice.

“We had to write out a script and how a student could answer (with a touch-tone phone),” Jass said. “We made up what we wanted to say, and we can change it fairly easily.”

The student is instructed to dial an identification number followed by a five-digit Bradley registration code. The codes are different for each student to prevent unauthorized persons from using the system, Jass said.

Each section of a class also has a five-digit code. The student dials the class code, and the computer tells him whether the class is open or closed.

If the class is open, the voice tells the student that he is registered. Students also can call the system to obtain a list of their classes, she said.

Students had some problems with busy signals when the system started in November 1985. Since then, Bradley has increased the number of phone lines in the system from eight to 12 and printed appointment times for students to call the system. A student can call anytime after the printed appointment time.

Students at Bradley are taught how to use the system at freshman orientation, and they use the system to register for their first semester. Instructions also are printed in the class schedule booklet. “The satisfaction has been tremendous,” Jass said.

The system works so well, a student in a foreign country used it to register for classes at Bradley.

The University of Southern California, the University of Utah and Georgia State University are among more than 30 colleges and universities using telephone registration systems.

The earliest students at NIU could see the new system is spring 1991 if software is developed quickly enough and if equipment arrives on time and works properly, said Richard Durfee, NIU’s records and registration director.

Before NIU can get a phone system, software necessary to allow classes to be changed from a computer terminal must be developed. Durfee said the software is being developed at NIU.

NIU’s mainframe also will have to be upgraded to handle the increased load from a phone registration system.

The final step involves the purchase of hardware to convert signals from a touch-tone phone to signals a computer can understand.

The cost of developing the system at NIU could be anywhere between $350,000 to $500,000, Durfee said.

Funding will also determine when the system goes into operation at NIU. “It is dependent on general revenue dollars. Availability (of funds) will determine whether we’re able to do this or not,” Durfee said.

Already, a computer programmer position assigned to the project could not be filled because there are not enough funds, Durfee said.

Once developed, NIU will probably continue to use mail registration. The phone system would be used to replace schedule completion and add/drop, Durfee said.