Warning: system overload

Overwhelmed system slows registration

By Jason Kerr- News Editor

             Last Tuesday morning many upperclassmen woke up early with hopes of having first dibs on courses for the upcoming fall semester. A majority of those students quickly became disappointed as they realized that the system was not responding to their attempts to register.

            The problem was that too many students were trying to register at one time. "It's a shared resource; there is a limit to it. It's just like if everyone turned their water on at the same time you'd only get a trickle of water," said executive director of information systems Daryl Carr.

            Many students tried to log-in to the registration homepage before the 7 a.m. starting time. The students who did were not too successful. "There was a technical issue. If you tried to log-in prior to the start time the registration button would have not been visible. Many people got stuck not realizing that," said Carr.

            Junior Erron Deloney was one of many students who ran across that problem. "I logged-on at 6:00 a.m., in the second floor lab in HT," said Deloney. He finally got into the system at approximately 9:00 a.m., but was kicked off four times before he finally registered.

            Deloney was not pleased with this year's registration process. "I was angry. I missed both of my classes and I missed a test. I didn't get done registering until 10:00 a.m. and by that time I had already missed half of my class," said Deloney.

             Because the system had been overwhelmed by so many students, the school acted fast. They allowed a maximum of fifty students to register at one time. "We did it in an attempt to control the situation. The amount of people aggravated the system and when the system reaches a critical amount, it doesn't respond well. The end goal was to make the experience good for everyone," said Carr.

            Junior Theodore Ross unsuccessfully tried to log on at noon. "It took me two hours to finally get through," said Ross. Ross said that the registration process frustrated him because he's not "a very patient person."

            The process soon sped up as the day went on, because many students were in class instead of trying to register.

            "A lot of students were continuously trying to register for the ISSI's class, and that was one of the main reasons why they couldn't get through. Once the system began to clear, the system started to respond normally," said Carr.

            Hopefully this problem won't happen again. "Once students understand the technical issues the process may be back to normal," said Carr.

 Computer labs, like above, have been filled all semester, but there wasn’t a computer to be found as rising seniors packed the labs hours early to register for classes this past Tuesday. Photo by Zach Muhrer.