Many students faced scheduling headaches and ended up skipping
the first day of classes yesterday when technical problems with
Wolverine Access made viewing course information impossible.
- Kate Green
- DAVID TUMAN/Daily
LSA sophomore Huey Fang Lim checks her Wolverine Access account shortly after it was made available to students again last night.
Administrative Information Services reported that Wolverine
Access — the University scheduling website — was
experiencing a web traffic problem.
University spokeswoman Julie Peterson said the problem was due
to the website’s inability to open new Internet connections
for students.
Peterson explained that when students usually log in to
Wolverine Access, their computer connects to the database where all
their information is stored. Usually, once students log out of the
website, the connection is terminated. Since there is only a fixed
number of connections the site can make, Wolverine Access must
first end the connections before allowing new users to access the
database.
Peterson said MAIS noticed the problem on Monday at around 11:30
p.m. But MAIS has not encountered this problem before, so the
solution is not immediately clear, Peterson added.
“(MAIS) are going to be working all through the night, but
there are no guarantees Wolverine Access will be up soon,”
she said.
As of last night, the website appeared to work again.
But class scheduling has already been affected. With students
unable to connect to Wolverine Access, many could not make changes
to their class schedules. Peterson said that as of yesterday
afternoon, only 800 students had dropped classes, compared with
around 6,000 on the first day of classes in previous semesters.
Peterson said contingency plans are available to the University
if the problem is not resolved soon, although she does not know
when students can expect them to be implemented if the problem
continues.
Peterson also said students can still connect to Wolverine
Access, but the connections are very limited. “(Wolverine
Access) is just not cycling people through normally. It’s not
that the system is down,” Peterson said.
For now, students who want to make changes to their student
accounts will have to visit the Registrar’s Office, which has
direct access to the student database. Students can also gain
direct access to their accounts through their college or school
office, Peterson added.
Yet many students who tried to connect to Wolverine Access just
wanted to know where to go for class.
LSA junior Madison Moore said his roommate did not attend class
because he could not find where his classes were located.
“I asked my roommate why he hadn’t left for class,
and he said he couldn’t because he had been trying to access
his schedule (through Wolverine Access) for the past 6
hours,” Moore said.
Madison said he was only able to access and find his classes
since he entered his schedule into his planner before Wolverine
Access experienced problems.
LSA senior Michelle Thompson faced the same problem, although
she found some of her classes through e-mails from Graduate Student
Instructors and course websites. But she said, “One of them I
couldn’t find. So I missed it.”