Gateway gets away from adminstrators
Ashley Fuquay
Issue date: 11/8/07 Section: Campus Life
- Page 1 of 1
On Oct. 17, the e-mail accounts of 696 students were dropped from the Gateway server.
"During the middle of each semester, Information Technology Services routinely runs a process that deletes student accounts that have graduated or for other reasons are no longer at the university," said James Wiley, Manager of Client and Server Computing.
This semester something went wrong. The IT Services is not sure whether this was a human mistake or if there was a bug or glitch in one of the programs used in the process, but when they deleted 4,000 accounts of former students, the accounts of almost 700 current students were also dropped by mistake.
The Gateway is not just an e-mail system. It has several other components as well. Currently all these components are up in running, but the deleted e-mail accounts will take more time to repair. Only a group of 24 e-mail accounts can be restored at a time and only two or three of these groups can be completely restored in one day.
Students who had their e-mail accounts deleted can still log on to the Gateway. These students will just not be able to access their e-mail accounts.
The IT Department is taking measures to ensure that this mistake does not happen again. They are redesigning the way accounts are created and deleted. Next semester there will be much less manual intervention required, all steps will be reversible and accounts will be first disabled for a time before they are completely removed from the system.
The IT Services did not notify the students, but they did send an e-mail to the faculty and staff.
"We felt that since the number of students affected was approximately 700 out of nearly 10,000, it was better not to blast an e-mail out to all students, possibly causing panic," Wiley said.
Professors should have a list of all the students whose e-mail accounts have been deleted, but it might be a good idea for students to remind them so they are not disadvantaged in classes where some of the material is done online. Students may contact the Computer Help Desk for more information at (254) 968-9885.
"During the middle of each semester, Information Technology Services routinely runs a process that deletes student accounts that have graduated or for other reasons are no longer at the university," said James Wiley, Manager of Client and Server Computing.
This semester something went wrong. The IT Services is not sure whether this was a human mistake or if there was a bug or glitch in one of the programs used in the process, but when they deleted 4,000 accounts of former students, the accounts of almost 700 current students were also dropped by mistake.
The Gateway is not just an e-mail system. It has several other components as well. Currently all these components are up in running, but the deleted e-mail accounts will take more time to repair. Only a group of 24 e-mail accounts can be restored at a time and only two or three of these groups can be completely restored in one day.
Students who had their e-mail accounts deleted can still log on to the Gateway. These students will just not be able to access their e-mail accounts.
The IT Department is taking measures to ensure that this mistake does not happen again. They are redesigning the way accounts are created and deleted. Next semester there will be much less manual intervention required, all steps will be reversible and accounts will be first disabled for a time before they are completely removed from the system.
The IT Services did not notify the students, but they did send an e-mail to the faculty and staff.
"We felt that since the number of students affected was approximately 700 out of nearly 10,000, it was better not to blast an e-mail out to all students, possibly causing panic," Wiley said.
Professors should have a list of all the students whose e-mail accounts have been deleted, but it might be a good idea for students to remind them so they are not disadvantaged in classes where some of the material is done online. Students may contact the Computer Help Desk for more information at (254) 968-9885.
Be the first to comment on this story