By Kassondra Granata
A problem with the online registration system last week led to questions about how CCSU can avoid another crash and make registering for classes smoother for students.
On Tuesday of last week, the system had temporarily shut down on freshmen scheduled to register that day, causing mayhem in the registration process.
At last Wednesday’s Open Forum with CCSU’s administration, a faculty member brought up the crash and questioned the IT about methods they can take to prevent this from happening again.
“All hell just broke loose,” said the faculty member. “Just looking at the freshmen Facebook page and what was posted and the anger directed at this University, things I will not say in public, the students were incredibly unhappy about this and I understand their frustration.”
The faculty member asked if there was a way to portion out the students whether it is by last name or divided into different schools.
James Estrada, Chief Information Officer stated that the volume of students was not an issue.
“We instituted a major upgrade in spring 2010, and for reasons that are unclear, we didn’t do a load test to make sure that the volume could be handled for registration purposes,” said Estrada.
The number of programs being run by different faculty members and the change in systems caused it to shut down.
“What we do need to address is the issue of collaboration on campus,” said Estrada. “We found what we think is the solution but we need an outside vendor to validate it. We don’t think the issue is the number of students registering at the same time.”
Certain programs are routinely checked and IT sends out emails to the departments with the registration times to ensure that they do not run their programs at those times.
“We need to make sure staff isn’t running these big programs when students are scheduled to register.”
Michaela Rafferty, a freshman, was one of many who had trouble registering during the crash.
“I logged on at 1:30 at my scheduled time and I put in all of my CRN’s in but after 10 minutes I knew something was wrong,” said Rafferty. “My CRN’s started to work randomly. I got one class at 4:30 and the other until 6:30. I was just staring at the computer screen from 1:30-4:30 and then I eventually just gave up. I made three different schedules because I figured something like this would happen, but I still didn’t get all of my first choices.”
Freshman Maggie Hazard ended up losing out when the system went back online.
“I tried to log in and then it logged me out and I contacted a few people and they told me about the problems they were having and I just gave up. Now, I only am registered for three classes,” said Hazard.
Hazard hopes to meet with her advisor by the end of the month to figure out her schedule for next semester.
An email has been sent out by President Jack Miller and Provost Carl Lovitt which was put on the “Special Announcements” section on the Central Pipeline website a week after the registration incident occurred that stated, “We expect that all of recommended changes will be in place by December 7, in time for the start of the next registration period. Please accept our sincere apologies for this inconvenience.”
Note: CIO James Estrada was contacted to provide further statement on the issue, but was not able to before this is issue was printed. For an updated version of the story, please go to www.centralrecorder.com.