ITC workers will cross their fingers today as a trial group of 500 students attempts to log on to ISIS. ITC has performed repairs over the last two days on the software that supports the online class registration system, and the rest of the student body may be able to register for classes starting tomorrow.
From 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. today, the first 500 students in order of registration priority will be allowed to log on to ISIS and -- hopefully -- register for classes. If all goes well, the Registrar's Office will reschedule students for class signups, probably starting tomorrow, Registrar Carol Stanley said.
The Registrar's Office will preserve the system of "release periods" that guarantees priority in registration to Echols and Rodman Scholars, athletes during season, and students who have earned the most credits. Registration times will now be spread out through Dec. 6.
A glitch prevented all but a few of the 3,000 students scheduled to register for classes Monday from doing so. ITC and Stanley decided to shut down the system Monday afternoon until further notice, although some students weren't notified of the shutdown by e-mail until late Monday night.
"We know students are unhappy, and trust me, I understand that," Stanley said.
ITC may have solved the problem. Softouch Systems, the Oklahoma-based company that provides some of the software that ISIS uses to construct its system, has identified two problem areas in their software which ITC has fixed, ITC Director Don Reynard said.
The bugs created a "memory caching" problem in the system, meaning that when one user logged off, memory was not freed up for another user, Reynard said. This meant the system was able to handle only a fraction of the 60-100 students it was designed to service simultaneously.
Stanley said the problem was unrelated to the recent cancellation of the telephone ISIS service.
ISIS remained open, even though it was barely functional, all day Monday because it had to run in order for ITC to identify the problems, Stanley said. She estimated that a few hundred students were lucky enough to get into classes Monday and yesterday, when ITC periodically reopened ISIS for testing.
"I've talked with [Provost Gene Block], and some of the associate deans in the schools" about removing those students from classes, she said. "It was decided that it was best to leave those students where they were."
ISIS worked perfectly for graduate registration last week, Reynard said.
"You test and you tune the applications, but this was really not foreseen," he said.
Stanley said the University will continue to accommodate those students who need certain classes to graduate.
"We offer our deepest apologies," Reynard said.
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