A revamped course listings website featuring a new layout and improved functionality went live last week to mixed reactions. Due to a push for the course guide to be greener, Washington University felt that, after printing fewer and fewer copies of the physical book each year, it could finally be phased out but not without a major overhaul of the website.

Flipping through the course catalog is soon to be a thing of the past. As of next semester, course listings will be exclusively available online via courses.wustl.edu and through a link on WebSTAC. Coupled with the change is an online course listings redesign, which will be launched Oct. 1, according to the notice on WebSTAC.

Last week, I, along with many other Washington University students, registered for classes for the fall semester. When I logged into WebSTAC Wednesday morning, I found that the section of Argumentation that I wanted to take was full. This of course created a total last-second rearranging of my schedule.

A new feature of WebSTAC will allow students to declare their majors and minors online.
The major part of the site is designed to save both students and department administrators the time it takes to fill out the paperwork.

Instead of trying to remember that acadinfo.wustl.edu will get them to WebSTAC, students can now reach WebSTAC via webstac.wustl.edu. And Students may find themselves visiting even the new URL less frequently, since a WebSTAC smartphone application is in the works.

Junior Joshua Gross was dissatisfied with Washington University’s online course catalog and decided to create WashUCourses.com. The only problem was the University trademark on “Wash. U.” and other variations of the University’s name. Gross changed the Web site’s URL to woocourses.com, after Patricia Hart, the associate general counsel of Washington University, sent a cease-and-desist letter on Feb. 18.

As the Washington University community begins 2010, we have decided to once again submit our list of expectations for the new year. These are a combination of coming events that we think it important to highlight, general trends we wish to commend or decry and a prospective list of some of the issues we think should command the Wash. U. community’s attention over the upcoming semester.

WebSTAC is whack…or at least, logging into it is nowadays.  Freshmen and transfer students are most likely unfamiliar with the days of yore, that much simpler time before the invention […]

Whether this upcoming spring will be your first at Wash. U. or you are a seasoned veteran, it’s coming time to pick what new areas of knowledge to dive into. […]

In an effort to make its online resources more accessible, Washington University has taken steps to install infrastructure for a single sign-on technology called WUSTL CONNECT.