Students at the University of British Columbia (UBC) are in an uproar after the university switched to a new course registration system ahead of the next term.
On Tuesday, UBC transitioned from their former Student Service Centre to Workday Student, which will be used for course registration among other academic administrative tasks.
Students tell CityNews that registering for their courses is crucial, and they’re frustrated at how difficult it is to navigate the new system.
Shannon, a student doing a Masters in Archival Studies at UBC, says she’s stressed about registering on time because she can’t sign into Workday Student properly.
“It just seems like a really basic function that should be running really smoothly at UBC, so I don’t understand why it’s not,” said Shannon.
Others students, like Tianyi Zhing, says the new Workday Student program is not as good as the old Student Service Centre.
“The new one looks fancy, you know, all the little buttons and stuff….but it’s just not practical at all,” said Zhing.
The system has been widely criticized on the r/UBC page on Reddit, with users claiming the new system is difficult to access and overly complicated. One commentor claimed Workday Student “messed up” their graduation requirements and listed their academic progress as only 93.5% satisfied.
This comes as UBC’s registration period for their Winter Session is fast approaching, with access for first-year students opening on June 24.
In an email to CityNews, Jennifer Burns the chief information officer at UBC says their enterprise system had reached the end of it’s life, and needed to be replaced.
“As with any new system implementation of this scale, some challenges can occur,” said Burns. “We are working to resolve these challenges quickly and are committed to keeping our students, faculty, and staff informed while providing clear channels for feedback and support.”
Burns says going forward, Workday Student will be a robust and reliable system to support students through their academic journey at UBC.