Following up with Vanderbilt Student Government Executive Vice President Wyatt Smith’s Letter to the Editor, plans for a transformation of OASIS are in place.

According to Smith, changes to OASIS have been proposed and have been debated since former VSG President Cara Bilotta was in office. Bilotta had met with the consulting firm hired by the Office of the Provost in order to relay students’ feedback on what features they wanted to be included in OASIS.

“Students have voiced desires for drop-down menus of courses, search by professor functions, a more workable and easy to use interface. All of these things are going to come with some time,” said Smith.

As Smith explained, OASIS is interconnected with many other databases, research systems and developmental computer programs around campus much like a maze. In order to completely replace OASIS, a new system would need to be able to link into this maze, and whatever system is used must be custom built for Vanderbilt.

“As of now, we’ve moved beyond just getting feedback. The step right now is that a replacement system is being designed in a custom way for the university,” Smith said. “It’s an update that’s planned but not yet scheduled.”

In addition, the Office of the Provost has also hired Director of Enrollment Management and Information Systems Lori Shipley to supervise the implementation and development of the new system.

“It’s good to see that the administration is finally prioritizing OASIS reform by getting a project manager working full-time on a new course registration,” said VSG President Joseph Williams. “The level of communication between administration offices and the student voice has been good, and they’re asking us at all levels what things we want improved. Although we understand it is a long process due to IT systems, we’re looking forward to a new system being implemented as soon as possible.”