Online Registration Could Be Available Within A Year!

Mik Mikitik just completed a very productive WebEx meeting with one potential vendor and is now cautiously confident that WDFW can have affordable, efficient online registration for hunter education students by the end of this year. Remember, online registration for students will be an option instructors decide upon--not one they are forced to live with.

A number of vendors have invested substantial resources into development of winning products/services. No application contains all of the online features staff and instructors want or need, but we have found a vendor that believes "Everything is possible." This is the kind of development team we need to make our dreams become online realities.

Various vendors feature all of the "basic" elements of any online registration system--super-user controls, administrative controls, instructor controls and student controls--which don't mean anything in today's whiz-bang world of e-wonders. What we need to distinguish the competition are an absolute commitment to hunter education, a strong service support record behind the product line, and a `can do' willingness to build applications that our fit end-user needs (rather than one which molds the user into an off-the-shelf product).

There is a lot of thought and process required before we arrive at the final online registration solution, but the benefits--to hunter education staff, instructors, and students--make it all worthwhile. Costs won't be insignificant, but they will be realistic and affordable.
Instructors will have an opportunity to help us craft a best-in-class online product/service, and several instructors have agreed to assist in reviewing proposals and offering suggestions for improvements. At this point there's nothing visual to offer instructors but there should be something available for review in the month(s) ahead.