Information technology workers are scrambling to fix the bugs in the new myASU portal; meanwhile, some ASU professors cannot access the information they need for their classes.
Once fully functional, myASU will give students, faculty and staff the ability to access a mix of news, services, email and courses online.
“We hope to have everything ready by next week,” Lewis said.
The project, which began approximately eight months ago, was made available to faculty while the system was being configured. It was released to students for the first time Aug. 1.
According to William Lewis, vice provost for information technology, cost for the new portal will be between $250,000 and $350,000.
“As we got it up and running, we started noticing performance problems,” Lewis said.
Testing revealed that the system was severely inadequate and therefore could not handle the large amount of activity it received from students.
Severe hardware problems arose on Tuesday, necessitating the replacement of the processor board.
An overloaded Web server caused more headaches for those working on the project. ASU Information Technology expected to fix the server Wednesday evening but was concerned that the repair would cause the database server to become extremely overloaded.
The problem will be addressed as soon as parts for the database become available.
The myASU portal has disappointed professors in the ASU Business College.
“It has failed to live up to what we were promised,” said Barry VanHook, associate professor of management. Students required to order the Wall Street Journal for their management and strategy classes are unable to do so.
They are also unable to access and order online textbooks.
“In real life people lose their jobs over these things,” VanHook said.
In spite of the delays, Lewis and his colleagues are confident that a solution to these problems will be reached very soon.
“Bear with us,” Lewis said. “We will get this solved as soon as possible.”
Reach Christina Higdon at grimm119@aol.com.
