This past week, Mercyhurst College students experienced problems with WebAdvisor while registering for spring term classes.

Mercyhurst IT has not yet been able to resolve the issue.

“The problem has not been resolved primarily because it’s an issue between the Datatel system and IBM,” Pat Benekos, Executive Director of Learning, Information and Technology Services, said.

“It is Datatel’s responsibility to resolve the problem, but we are working with them to resolve it,” Benekos said.

According to Benekos, WebAdvisor is not running properly due to a time discrepancy in the system.

“There is an internal clock that is five hours off,” Benekos said.

Now that the IT department is aware of the problem, “We are at least able to cope better with the problem and monitor it more closely,” Benekos said.

Due to the technical problems, some students were not able to register for classes.

Sophomore Tyler Stauffer could not log in to WebAdvisor during his registration time.

“I called my grandmother via Skype and had her log in as me and schedule my classes,” Stauffer said.

According to Registrar Pat Whalen, there were very few complaints about students not being able to register.

The Registrar’s Office does a study every day during registration to see if more students register in the Registrar’s Office or online. The studies showed the “vast majority registered online successfully,” Whalen said.

The Registrar’s Office helped students who were not able to register successfully and were closed out of courses by finding alternative classes they could take.

“I always find them a course,” Whalen said.

Whalen sent an e-mail to students on Monday, Feb. 1, advising them to verify that they are registered for spring term classes.

According to Whalen, this message was just an alert encouraging students to make sure they registered. Every term, she noted, there are a few students who thought they registered, but their registrations never went through the system. Whalen said students should verify their schedules after they register every term, and this e-mail was just a reminder.

Freshman should not experience many problems when they register on Thursday and Friday of this week.

“We should be able to head off any issues and see if there is anything that will impact registration significantly,” Benekos said. “If you do have an issue, try it again.”

Students who continue to experience registration problems should contact the HelpDesk or the Registrar’s Office.