Every year, Iowa State residents spend time — sometimes lots of time — looking for the perfect dorm room. Soon these requests will be even easier to make with the online preferencing system being introduced by the Department of Residence.

Dave Popelka, assistant director of Business Operations for the Department of Residence, said the current preferencing system is inefficient.

In order to request a room, students must go through their resident assistants, and they are assigned rooms based on availability, their priority dating and the number of semesters they have attended ISU.

Incoming students are mailed contracts for their preferencing, which they fill out and send back to the department. Computers then assign rooms based on the information in the contracts.

“The manual process to select space is very time consuming and work intensive,” Popelka said. “[The online system will be] an improvement in services and a more efficient use of resources.”

This service will available through the AccessPlus program at ISU. Students will be able to see the rooms available to them based on their profiles. If students know exactly what they want when they use the preferencing system, they could be done within three to five minutes.

The program allows for browsing, so students can look at all of their options before they decide, Popelka said.

“We want to make this as easy as possible for everyone,” he said.

Another benefit of this program, Popelka said, is that it will be accessible at any time throughout the year instead of just during preferencing time at the end of the semester.

Tim Burgess, a programmer working on the project, said this aspect is probably one of the best benefits of the new system.

“The fact that it will break them out of the 8 to 5 office hours is the biggest advantage to students; it fits their schedules,” he said.

Burgess said once the program is fully completed, students will be able to access the system from any computer that is online.

While some students may miss the old preferencing system, Popelka thinks the new one is a definite step in the right direction.

“People have to get used to it, but it’s almost expected now that we have this kind of technology available,” he said.

Popelka said the program will be especially useful as the Master Plan housing becomes available, since it will be programmed for the new housing options.

Ben Chamberlain, president of the Inter-Residence Hall Association, said a couple of IRHA members have been working with the department on the program. Chamberlain, senior in agricultural studies, said the convenient part of the new system will be a resident’s opportunity to view all the available rooms in all three residence hall associations.

“It should be a lot easier — you won’t have to got through your RA or the hall desk,” he said.

Like all new programs, there may be some problems with the preferencing as it is starting out, he said, “but I think it will be well received.”