Costly Mistakes
Human error caused 26,000 SMART forms to be reprinted last week,
costing the university hundreds of dollars during a time of extreme
budget cuts.
When the Department of Information Systems initially printed the
SMART forms they were missing information about the increased
enforcement of math and composition account holds and all 26,000
forms had to be reprinted as a result, said Associate Registrar
Nolan Oltjenbruns.
SMART forms contain registration information such as the
earliest date to register for courses, a student’s adviser code and
adviser references for a student’s courses.
“It was a processing error; sometimes these things happen
because we are just human beings,” said Don Hesser, director of
information systems.
Yet, Hesser said that the process of reprinting the forms was
minimal.
“We discovered the error and it was corrected,” Hesser said.
“The cost was limited to the cost of paper, which is pretty
inexpensive.”
Reprinting the forms resulted in an overall cost of $264.04 for
the department, a printing cost of one hundredth of one cent per
sheet. The reprint would have cost additional money, but the
staffing and other costs needed to complete the job were already
available in the department, Hesser said.
In contrast, printing 26,000 double-sided copies on standard
sized and standard white paper would cost 3.5 cents a sheet at
Kinko’s, costing $910 for the printing job. The same job would cost
$1,638 at Alphagraphics, including a 10 percent CSU discount.
Bob Kling, an associate professor and adviser for economics,
said the SMART form is an important part of the advising
process.
“They are the first things I look at,” Kling said. “I use the
backside to confirm what (the students) are registered in and to
make sure there are no holes. When I’m advising a whole stack of
students I always look at the SMART form for details.”
Reprinting the 26,000 forms created a one-day delay, but
students will receive SMART forms as planned at their advising
sessions, Oltjenbruns said.
“Processes can occur on a daily basis,” Oltjenbruns said. “We
can recover them by rescheduling for the next day.”
Monica Garcia, a freshman business administration major, said
she is relieved that the SMART forms will be distributed on
time.
“Not having them would have made it harder to register,” Garcia
said. “You’d be sitting there wondering ‘What do I take?’ ‘Will
this help me or hurt me?’ ‘How do I find out if I need this?'”
SMART forms may be important to the registration process, but
the current method of printing SMART forms is outdated, Oltjenbruns
said.
“We are beginning conversations to explore new possibilities of
how students receive their SMART forms because printing them uses a
lot of paper,” Oltjenbruns said.
Regardless of processing errors, Hesser believes that the
reprint was handled effectively because students were never given
inaccurate forms.
“We are big on quality control and making sure that the students
are not adversely effected,” Hesser said. “I believe in this case
we succeeded.”
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