Originally Published 18 November 2002

Last November, the University launched a project to develop a web-based system for enrolling new and returning students to offer a better service to students, improve the University's data quality, save staff time and reduce costs.

On 16 September 2002, on-line enrolment was launched for all new full-time undergraduate and postgraduate research students. For the first time students were able to enrol via the internet up to two weeks before they left home to come to University.

After enrolment the students' details were passed through a web-based system that allowed the enrolment team to carry out checks on the data before it was automatically up-loaded into the student records system, thereby eliminating the need for staff to check through every single paper form and enter any changes manually.

The project proved successful in reducing the time students had to queue at arrival weekend in a number of ways:

• over 76% of students had enrolled before arriving at the University
• over 800 students submitted photos online allowing far more cards to be produced in advance of arrival weekend than in previous years
• almost 2,200 students opted to use the facility to set-up direct debits on-line to pay their fees.

On-line enrolment forms an important part of the University's aim to create an on-line managed learning environment for students. The next steps are to launch on-line enrolment for taught postgraduate and part-time undergraduate students and to develop an on-line system that allows students to register their module choices.