By Lori Bredemeyer, Copy Editor
Students returning to school found they were required to register their computer, and most faced difficulties with myACU, although most of the problems have been extinguished, said James Langford, director of web integration and programming.
The most recent and ongoing problem has been the outage of the files tab on myACU, which Langford said is being caused by a hardware failure in the 4-year-old program.
When some of the new programs on myACU were updated, it caused complications with the computer containing student files.
“We anticipated this six months ago, and we had the person who wrote the program rewrite it,” Langford said. “One of our top priorities is fixing that or installing a replacement.”
Dr. K.B. Massingill, chief information officer, said upgrading certain programs can cause others to fail.
“Sometimes when you upgrade there’s a cascading effect because one upgrade may force another upgrade; you never know what that cascading effect will be,” he said. “It’s a complex environment … we have to look down the line to see what other programs it touches.”
Before students could work on the network, they had to register their computers with Information Technology on a new system called resNETreg, which stands for Resnet Registration. The system gives network engineers the ability to identify quickly a computer infected with a virus or needing a Windows update.
Massingill said the Information Services decided to utilize the program after the virus attack last August. He said it was relatively easy for Information Technology to control the virus on ACU-run computers, but a problem arose from personal computers on the network that already had the virus or several viruses.
With the new system, each student’s computer is registered and the technology offices can more easily identify where a problem is.
Massingill said the registration has gone smoothly.
“I’m impressed with the student body; they’ve dealt with the change almost transparently,” he said.
Bob Nevill, director of computer and network services, said when the system identifies a problem computer, an e-mail is sent to the user notifying them of the problem and giving them the steps to repair it.
“We’re not just taking them off the network, Nevill said. “We help the student get the machine cleaned up, and it benefits the whole network.”
Arthur Brant, network administrator, said 1,647 devices had been registered as of Thursday, which includes computers and game consoles, such as Xboxes.
Massingill said with all of the recent upgrades on the network, ACU is ahead of other schools.
“In relation to our peers, we’re pushing the envelope with the [myACU] portal,” he said. “We’re certainly not on the trailing edge. We’re doing things other schools are not.”
