The incoming freshman class will be able to take advantage of increasing technology at UW-Madison, including Web enrollment and the NetID system, more so than any group before, according to Brian Rust, communications manager for the UW-Madison Division of Information Technology.
Freshmen were sent information about the NetID system in their Summer Orientation and Registration packets. They are expected to activate the system before the second day of the SOAR program in order to use the Web enrollment program, offered in the My UW-Madison portal, to register for fall classes. According to Rust, this is the first year that Web-based enrollment will be used primarily instead of of the touch-tone system used in the past.
Web enrollment simplifies the registration process by allowing students to view the online timetable and the enrollment window simultaneously, Rust said.
\Web enrollment is a dynamic tool that allows you to register for classes,"" he said.
Once NetID is activated, students will also be able to take advantage of their UW-Madison e-mail accounts via the campus' Web-based e-mail system, Wiscmail, and an online calendar program, WiscCal, using their MyUW portal. Improvements to the e-mail system were made in the spring in an effort to promote student use of the university e-mail system.
""What we're really trying to do is get students to use Wiscmail as their preferred email program,"" Rust said. ""It's the same as Yahoo and Hotmail but it's got other features that go beyond those.""
WiscCal offers students a way to set up meetings and import university calendars into their own personal online calendar.
""You can use it to set up appointments with professors, [to import] a whole bunch of different university calendars [into your personal calendar] and, rather than printing a copy of your own class schedule, you can import it into your own personal online schedule,"" Rust said.
In addition to the new NetID, most new freshmen will receive revamped ID cards to go in their wallets.
UW-Madison WisCard System Manager Jim Wysocry said the newly designed ID cards will bear the name ""WisCard"" to stress their connection to the so-named campus debit card program.
""The new card will be in color, certainly a change from the old,"" he said.
Although bugs were still being worked out in early June, most new students attending this year's SOAR will likely receive the new cards, according to Wysocry.
