Story by Beth LeValley
Photo by Luke Nankivell
Drake University faculty and students alerted the Office of Information and Technology (OIT) to campus internet issues.
OIT is working to solve the problem.
“There is a general Internet slowdown from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on weekdays only, though this slowdown has only been perceived when using specific applications,” said Director of Communications and Network Services Jeff Sabin.
Some faculty have come forward about this problem.
“OIT has only received reports from two departments. One report was for a lab application only in use every one to two weeks. The other report affected staff members using Outlook to access email with a nonstandard configuration,” Sabin said.
Only one issue has been reported that affects students, which is the lab program. Otherwise, only staff members are involved.
In general, the problem resulted from hardware that has been in service since 2005. To fix the problem, OIT must replace the aging equipment.
It will be replaced in the next few weeks.
The Internet issue is looking to be resolved before Thanksgiving, and most likely will be fixed before that.
Students who experienced the technical difficulties in the lab reported that the issue was quickly solved but had an impact on their schedule.
The program’s name was SPSS, a statistics program used in the science lab.
First-year Brooke Rogers said she had a group project that was due that used the lab program.
“To my knowledge, the program’s problem was that the license was not updated to fit the current updated program, which made the current system inoperable. It took three or four days for the problem to get fixed, and it did have an effect on my schoolwork and schedule,” Rogers said. “It was frustrating because it was one of the few times my group could actually meet to work on it together, so we had to find a different day to work on it, which was quite difficult.”
The technical difficulty did not push back her paper, which posed more problems for her group.
“I usually experience two to three Internet problems daily. Often, it is the Internet is not able to connect to a network or the Internet crashes,” Rogers said.
No other reports have been received from the Dial Center or Drake OIT, but other applications could have problems if they are accessed from the Internet.
