I can check my e-mail, but I can't check my roster and all of these unrecognizable faces are coming to me asking if their drop forms were processed correctly or if they're still on my rosters. Lower classmen are asking for PINs, upper classmen are asking me to evaluate their transcripts so they can register for the right combination of courses to fulfill every little requirement our school has. I can't do anything about any of it. I can't even look up the schedule to see if one class conflicts with another. I can't even pull up my own schedule to answer whether or not I can teach an overload course. I can't do anything until after Thanksgiving weekend.
I do enjoy being able to shrug as an honest complete answer to the jerkoffs who disappeared Labor Day and are now going to be stuck with an F in my class because I can't withdraw them before the final-even-with-instructor's-permission deadline. But I actually like some of my advisees and this pisses me off.
So in short, Texpat76 is correct once again.
The IT Department Must Die!
We get these, too, for both the enrollment-management and learning-management systems. Though, to be fair, there aren't a lot of times during the year when both students *and* professors don't really need access (and most of the periods of low usage coincide with major holidays when the IT folks might reasonably also want to take a break). A week seems long, though; our IT folks usually manage such tasks in 72 hours at most, and often do much better.
ReplyDeleteAlso, we get *lots* of warning emails (not just a little red notice).
ReplyDeleteWe just came off was was to be "intermittent outages" for fac/staff email on a Sunday which mushroomed into 3 days of no access to email, rosters, etc. Fortunately, they waited until the end of preregistration to do it...
ReplyDeleteWhen I started college, we still had to wait in line to register for classes. I think it's time to re-instate that policy. Maybe then IT and ADMIN will get the schedule straight.
ReplyDeleteI am associated with a school with "technical" in the title where the IT folks managed to down the entire campus computer network ... library, internet, email, everything. For a week.
ReplyDeleteBut the wombat, the wombat is so cute.
ReplyDeleteDie, IT, die!
ReplyDelete10 days? No planned upgrade needs 10 days. They are hiding something else (like the squirrels got into the server room or it is under water).
ReplyDeleteWith even the crappiest of IT systems (and yes, they are abundant) you freeze changes, take a copy of the data, shovel it over to the new system, discover that it doesn't work, unfreeze it, fix the transformation software, freeze it again, transform, start the new system, cut over, and hold your breath as the new system chugs into life. Shouldn't take more than a weekend, even with a moron or two on the transition staff.
But if they are laying new electrical cables, installing air-conditioning, putting up a physical new server, that will take a day or two more.
My solution: I have my own IT department. They run the servers for actual instruction and student's and teacher's data. We even run our own emergency back-up email server for when the school one chokes up. We run our own Moodle.
The official school IT department services the administration PCs, the school web page, the official school learning management system and the nasty registration thing. I only end up having to scream at the IT department if they screw up the latter.
Oh, they hate my guts, because I complain in the right places (where it hurts) and I won't let them brush me off with a nonsense explanation of what is going on.
Dean Suzy
You know, between this and and Professor Beer... I kind of wish I knew Dean Suzy professionally.
ReplyDelete