Say goodbye to paper housing contracts. This year, Columbia Undergraduate Housing has inaugurated Protocol, a new room selection software product that completely removes the need for paper contracts in the room-selection process.
Under the old system, information was manually entered into a homemade software system and then re-entered on the Student Information System (SIS).
“The new software system is supported by a company rather than an individual and therefore isn’t tied to a person who knows it,” Scott Wright, head of Housing and Dining, said. “It keeps an official record which automatically downloads to SIS and therefore eliminates the element of human error by streamlining the information.”
Students will receive e-mail verification of their housing assignment and must accept their contracts electronically using the electronic-signature software.
Protocol will electronically record the dates on which individual students move out so that maintenance has a more efficient way of knowing when to clean suites, especially in the three weeks between spring and summer housing. The new system will have no impact on the students’ bills.
The system is predicted to save Housing 17,000 sheets of paper annually. It will also remove the inconvenience students face on the day that contracts need to be signed, which often falls during academically demanding periods of time. The system will be extended to incoming first-years, who will receive their UNIs earlier than usual so that they can verify their contracts online.
“We’ve had to do a lot of work with the re-carding of the campus and putting the new identity cards in place,” Wright said. “We had to work very hard to remove the kinks in the system and make this happen. The process is essentially the same. A lot of what is different is the look.”
The new system will be more secure, as students’ personal information and Social Security numbers will not be available on paper.
“This wasn’t prompted by complaints about the old system from students,” Wright said. “The biggest wins are in our systems. Now, we can provide better service because we aren’t mired in outdated systems, double entries, and paper contracts. It was cumbersome to manage huge checkouts for 5,250 students manually. This way, we can keep track of things efficiently.”