Students to Use New Catalog

Thanks to one of their own peers in public policy, students at the Kennedy School of Government will be able to plan their course schedules using a new computerized course catalogue.

The new system, created by Rafik Haj as part of a class project this fall, will go on-line in time to help students choose courses for spring semester, according to H. Scott Samenfeld, director of computer services at the Kennedy School.

The program, which will be accessible from the Kennedy School's computer lab, puts course descriptions and evaluations, scheduling and faculty biographical information at students' fingertips, Samenfeld said.

"[The program] ties in the kinds of things students have to do. Now they need to look up information in several books," Samenfeld said. "This catches about 80 percent of what a student needs to know to register."

Despite this improved efficiency, computerized course registration is still a long way away, Samenfeld said.

Registration forms at the Kennedy School are currently hand written and entered, said Slaten R. Van Saun, coordinator of data systems for the registrar and enrollment services.

To be really useful, a computerized system would allow all the University's schools to cross-register. But this would require Harvard to adopt a costly University-wide registration program, Samenfeld said.

"[Computerization] does demonstrate the problem with University-wide standardization of data," Samenfeld said. "Our system is pretty slick but it has the problem of being only germane to our school."

Harvard does plan to begin operating a University-wide computerized course catalogue in late spring or early summer, said Dale P. Flecker, associate director for planning and systems at the Harvard University Library.

Provost Jerry R. Green, who initiated the project, said the new system's goal is to make up-to-date course information widely available on several different systems.

"We'd like to provide information to students as early as possible and to keep it updated," Green said.

The University-wide program will be less sophisticated than Haj's creation, however.

The listings will not include biographies of professors or course evaluations, Flecker said.

"The Kennedy School has a nice application for an individual school, but it is fancier than what we'd be able to do for the University as a whole," Flecker said.

Rebecca M. Wand contributed to the reporting of this story.