Registrar Online Site Experiences Slowdowns

Students trying to access fall semester grade reports or section for courses on-line yesterday found slow servers and error messages at the College web sites.

On-line grade reports were scheduled to be available at noon but were delayed an hour and thirty minutes due to last-minute checking in order to ensure that actual grades matched those on screen.

Registrar Arlene F. Becella said in an e-mail message that most grades reports should now be available for students to review.

"We import the updated grades to [the computer network] only once every 24 hours," she said."[I]t was our goal to have as many grades as possible reported today."

The only current problem she said, is that the large number of students attempting to access their grades on-line has affected the speed of the site.

"[The computer network]...reports very heavy demand at both the PIN authentication server and the grade report site and this has resulted in slow response time," Becella said.

In order to access grades, students need their University-issued personal identification numbers.

Students eager to find out how they were evaluated last semester said they were frustrated by the slow access speed to the registrar's web site.

Gabriel A. Mendel '02, said that in attempting to access his grade report, he waited "what seemed like an exorbitant amount of time."

But Mendel said he thought the registrar offers a valuable service by putting the grades on-line.

"The fact that we can still get our grades in two minutes instead of two weeks is great," he said.

Students also experienced difficulties with on-line sectioning today.

First-years trying to section for expository writing classes were unable to access the program at certain times through the day.

Since the sectioning deadline was 10 p.m. yesterday, many first-years were forced to visit the Expos office on Prescott St. to section for class.

Rick Osterberg '96, the database applications specialist at FAS Computer Services, could not be reached for comment last night.