John Athan didn't go to class Monday. He wasn't sick, had no cartrouble and made it to campus on time. His problem, instead, wasTigerweb.
Tigerweb, The University of Memphis' online service, providesstudents and faculty with everything from class registration tounofficial transcripts to class lists -- when it is working. Whenit is not working, as on Monday morning, everyone has aproblem.
Athan, a freshman accounting major, needed to print hisschedule. When he tried, he got a "system down" error message and,since he didn't know where his classes were being held, he did notgo to class.
Athan's mistake, according to Registrar Noel A. Schwartz, was inwaiting to print his schedule at the last minute.
"Every semester on the first day of classes, we have the peakvolume of access requests to Tigerweb," Schwartz said. "Any timethe system is overloaded with requests, there is a delay in theresponse time for the system."
Tigerweb has a time-out protection system on it, and when theresponse time exceeds that time-out period, the student is loggedoff the system, Schwartz said.
Access requests on the first day of classes are usually fromstudents wanting to print schedules or trying to grab seats inclasses other students have dropped. It is the highest add/drop dayat The U of M, Schwartz said.
Sara Hennum, a freshman accounting major, said the delay wasn'tjust Monday, however. She tried to get on Tigerweb Sunday night,only to be met by a "system down" message.
"I finally got my schedule printed out, but it took me 40minutes to figure it out," she said.
Other students, like junior Kenneth Wyatt, were met by a "pagewon't display" error message. Wyatt, a logistics and supply chainmanagement major, already had his schedule but tried to check aclass location Monday morning.
Danielle Greer, sophomore biology major, said nothing wasworking when she first tried to log on Monday morning to check herfinancial aid status.
"It was terrible," she said. "It was busy, and then it said thepage wouldn't display."
A sluggish system wasn't the only problem for Tigerweb Monday,however. The entire system was down for about an hour whiletechnical problems were remedied. The system was down from about12:15 to 1:20 p.m., Schwartz said. Any problems outside of thistime frame were delays caused by the system overload, she said.
"I always encourage students to take care of (registration,schedule print-outs, etc.) before the first day of class todecrease the volume of access requests," Schwartz said. "Somepeople even wait until today to register."
