The Accessible Campus Online Resource Network (ACORN), the much-anticipated successor to the Repository of Student Information (ROSI) has now been live for nearly a month. The site launched on June 22, 2015.
ACORN is the new platform where students may enroll in courses; check their financial status, registration time slots, and link directly to their Portal page to check their academic progress. The service was designed with help from student feedback and beta testing.
“From what I have seen of ACORN, it leaves a very positive impression. Its UI [User-interface] is way better than ROSI’s and it seems way more straightforward to use,” said Jim Hotti, a second-year student at the University of Toronto, adding that, “I do really like the Enrollment Cart feature as well.”
One of ACORN’s most popular features is the ability for students to create an Enrolment Cart, which allows users to search and save courses to a cart, at any time, then to enroll in said courses during the enrollment open window. ROSI only permits students to add courses one by one and at the start of their enrollment time. One of the biggest changes with course enrollment on ACORN is the site’s ability to autocomplete search results based off a code or keyword.
“As soon as ACORN came out, I basically stopped logging into ROSI, even though we are still given the option,” said second-year student Stephanie Bianco. Bianco said that she found ACORN more user friendly than ROSI. “Going into course selection I feel that this time around it will be totally different. I am entering my second year and I know how much I struggled with ROSI in my first year, not even with just course selection. Having the ability to place things in a cart helps in keeping me organized and takes a lot of pressure off the students.”
Soverna Lindo, a third-year environmental science major, agrees that the ability to store courses before enrollment makes the entire process easier. “I love that everything is right there, for instance if you want to look at work study or health options at U of T it is all right in ACORN, you just need to select it. ”
ACORN was created with a user-centered approach. The new resource’s main goal, as outlined by its student Q&A page, is to integrate students’ academic and social lives at the U of T by allowing access to Academic History, Co-Curricular Record, and Housing, all on the same page.
“I found ACORN more useful, the sidebar makes using the website more accessible for your academic needs,” said Ted Hoover, a third-year Canadian studies specialist.
The sidebar feature of ACORN has been the highlight for many students, as it allows quick access to all the features of the U of T site, including Portal, financial invoices, exam timetables, and course conflicts.
“The switch from ROSI to ACORN has been positive and the school has given us an abundance of resources to help us in using the system. I believe that ACORN will make for a different student experience, having basically everything you need at your fingertips, laid out in an orderly fashion where we aren’t scrambling to look for our course enrolment times or where to look if we want to see a past invoice. This is just another reason to be proud of U of T, they are truly beginning to look at the student experience holistically,” said Bianco.
For the next six months ACORN and ROSI will be operating concurrently. After this transition period, ACORN will fully replace ROSI.
