The housing assignment process for returning students planning to live in residence halls will be moving online for the 2008-2009 registration, said Mark D’Arienzo, associate director of University Housing.

“We want to make the process easier for the students and for us,” he said.

Students will use their NetIDs to access the housing selection Web site, which will be ready by the end of April, D’Arienzo said. They can search for rooms in any of the residence halls. During a 10-minute period, students will be able to lock in their room selection and no other student will be able to select that room.

Students who wish to live in double- or triple-occupancy rooms must register with their desired roommates when selecting those rooms. This will prevent students from not filling up multiple-occupancy rooms, D’Arienzo said.

The new system will allow students to choose their rooms during normal office hours from their own computers, whereas the old system required students to go to Parkes Hall at night to make their housing selection.

“We’re going be doing this during the daytime so we’ll be in the office to help the students,” D’Arienzo said.

Students using PCs must use Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher to access the system, while those using Macs must use Netscape 7.0 or higher.

With the housing selection process fast approaching, no additional browsers could be added in time, D’Arienzo said.

“Will this be inconvenient for some students? Yes,” D’Arienzo said. “Was going all the way down to Parkes at night inconvenient for some students? Yes.”