Student Center website gets makeover before enrollment, Chapman community reacts

Changes to Chapman’s new Student Center website include a revamped homepage and the abilities to search for exact courses or “favorite” classes a user comes across. DANIEL PEARSON, Photo Editor

Chapman University introduced its new Student Center website March 13 prior to spring break after the software used by the website received an upgrade, according to Lauri Mantooth, the assistant vice president for enterprise applications and projects in Chapman’s Information Systems and Technology (IS&T) department.

The new website has individual clickable boxes on its homepage to facilitate easier access to features such as tuition payment, the shopping cart and the program evaluation, compared to the old my.chapman.edu website’s drop-down menu.

“We wanted to get the new version (of the update) out to students as quickly as we could,” Mantooth told The Panther.

Also among the changes are enhanced search options for classes. Students can now search for the course number directly, or for more search options, students can click the “Additional ways to search” hyperlinked text. Students can still search for all the classes in a major, minor or GE offered for a specific term, but they cannot search for classes that have course numbers greater than or less than the inputted value.

Students are also able to “favorite” their courses now and access recently viewed courses on the same page used to search for classes. To “favorite” a course, students can click the “Add to favorite courses” hyperlinked text after clicking on a search result.

With registration for summer and fall classes starting in mere days, the Office of the University Registrar has created reference guides for the new website on how to navigate registration, program evaluations, permission numbers and transfer credits.

Mantooth told The Panther that the department has gotten a few tickets thanking them for the changes and how to use features like the shopping cart.

“We have received feedback that the new StudentCenter is much more intuitive and much easier to navigate on a mobile device,” Mantooth said.

Mantooth acknowledged that the new website comes with “a small learning curve,” but added that students can use the reference guides created by the Office of the University Registrar.

Prior to the spring break, junior creative producing major and transfer student Cayla Romo had tried to access the new website but experienced difficulty in doing so.

“I went to the new website, and then I tried to log in, and it kind of just (kept) blinking at me,” Romo said. “(The website was) making a movement of trying to bring it up, but it was just kind of going in circles and also just blinking. It was very bizarre.”

When Romo closed the webpage and restarted her computer, she was able to load the website without any problem. Since using the new website, she has found the interface to be more “user-friendly.” Romo said she felt the old website was “old-looking” and “wasn’t the most natural” to use.

“(The new website) is definitely more straightforward,” Romo said. “I don’t necessarily have to do little drop-downs to get where I want to go. I can just look at the class schedule or look at my (tuition) bill. All I have to do is click on the little box that will bring me right there.”

According to Mantooth, IS&T spent five months working on the technical upgrade but had help from many departments, including the Office of the University Registrar and the Office of Financial Aid, to ensure the respective features of the new website were working. 

However, Mantooth told The Panther that students can submit a ticket with IS&T or contact her directly (mantooth@chapman.edu) if they have any concerns or experience any issues with the new website.