ONLINE ENLISTMENT has been halted because the Ateneo Integrated Student Information System (Aisis) had persistent server problems during the second semester online registration of seniors and superseniors this October 21.
Office of Management Information System (OMIS) and other concerned offices decided to discontinue the enlistment due to several “issues on database performance” of Aisis despite efforts to remedy the situation.
In accordance with the instructions of the Office of the Registrar, senior and supersenior online enlistment is set to resume on Wednesday, October 23. Meanwhile, online registration for juniors, sophomores and freshmen are rescheduled on October 24, 25 and 26, respectively.
The same time schedule will be observed for the first and second enlistment batches.
According to OMIS and the Information Technology Resource Management Office, “those who have managed to successfully enlist will remain in their classes.” The announcement was made through the official Facebook page of the Sanggunian at 2:36 PM on October 21.
Server haywire
Aisis was reportedly having internal server error since 9:00 AM of October 21, the start of enlistment for the first batch of seniors and superseniors.
Several students posted on social media sites that they repeatedly got an error message stating, “Your Request Cannot Be Processed At This Time” when trying to click the “Enlist in Class” page link on Aisis.
Some first batchers were not even able to get past the Aisis login page.
Around 9:20 AM, psychology senior Carlota Tuprio said on the seniors’ Facebook batch group that upon calling OMIS, she was advised to wait for five minutes before checking Aisis again.
However, she still encountered a server error after the prescribed waiting period.
Based on Facebook posts on the senior’s batch group, most students were unable to enlist from 9:00 AM until 10:30 AM.
In an e-mail to The GUIDON, OMIS said they decided to temporarily stop the enlistment process at 10:30 AM upon consultation with “involved offices.”
At 10:36 AM, another Facebook post by the Sanggunian relayed that a tentative new enlistment schedule had been made: The first batch would enlist at 1:00 PM while the second batch would enlist at 3:30 PM.
According to the e-mail from OMIS, initial troubleshooting was conducted from around 11:45 PM to 12:00 noon.
However, electronics and communications engineering senior Kata Ramos said that after the official announcement of the rescheduling of enlistment, Aisis was still accessible for about 15 to 20 minutes.
Some seniors and superseniors from both the first and second batches “were able to access the system” and reportedly enlisted in their classes between 11:45 AM to 12:00 PM.
Nonetheless, OMIS said that the “positive results” of the troubleshooting during this period lead to the decision to resume enlistment at 1:00 PM.
However, server errors still occurred during the rescheduled enlistment time.
OMIS and other involved offices then opted to stop the day’s enlistment process and schedule its resumption for October 23.
Sanggunian Committee on Academic Affairs Chairperson Larisse Mondok was relaying students’ concerns to OMIS during the enlistment process. She also informed students about the advisories from the office.
Petition for reset
Several seniors and superseniors expressed their dismay on social media sites.
According to Mondok, many students were upset that others were still able to enlist when the Aisis server was supposedly down.
Some called for a “reset” of the enlistment process for the sake of “fairness.”
“Reset please. They have already announced that enlistment was rescheduled for 1:00 PM but they did not close the site, so there are people who were still able to enlist,” Ramos said in a mix of English and Filipino in a thread in the seniors’ Facebook group.
Despite being able to finish enlisting, communications technology management senior Ariel Valdez is also supportive of the proposal to reset the enlistment process.
“I’m for a general reset, even though I’m done enlisting everything. [It’s] not fair enlisting amidst the confusion and glitches,” he commented in the Facebook thread.
However, applied mathematics major in mathematical finance senior Zheng Rong Wu thinks there is no need to reset the slots, as having less people enlisting on Wednesday can potentially decrease traffic on the site.
“From an unbiased point of view, resetting the slots does not do any justice at all,” Wu commented on the Facebook thread of the seniors.
“The unfairness is not caused by bad consciences but by the very limitations of Ateneo’s server system,” he added.
Meanwhile, interdisciplinary studies senior Bernadine Lanot posted in the seniors’ Facebook batch group that despite all students following the right enlistment process, she still finds it unfair.
“The overall value behind the entire system is so that there will be equal opportunity for everyone,” she said in her Facebook comment.
“Of course, we’re not condemning the people who got [the classes they want already]… The issue’s not even because of contextual problems per individual. It is a problem in the system itself,” Lanot added.
To consolidate student reports, Cate Sison, an applied mathematics major in mathematical finance senior, initiated an Aisis incident report survey.
The online survey form posted in the said Facebook batch group asked for incident reports, timestamps, servers and web browsers used during the enlistment process.
Inconvenience
In their official statement released online, the MIS team apologized for the enlistment problems.
“Our sincere apologies for the delay of second semester online registration,” the statement read.
“Coming into this semester’s registration, we (OMIS) did all the usual preparations. However, this morning we experienced a slowing down of the registration system,” the statement added.
OMIS reassured students that “all [OMIS’] resources are being utilized to address this issue.”
UPDATED: 5:45 PM, October 22, 2013
