<p>So SIS is down again .... and I have yet to memorise my schedule. So I could have a class at 8:30 am tomorrow and I wouldn't know.</p>
<p>The thing is, if this system were managed by students and the tech support was done by students like ITC did in the past, the system would be fixed by now. Even at 3:18 am.</p>
<p>I also bet it wouldn't be as ridiculously buggy. How are we paying millions of dollars for this thing?</p>
<p>The same here. This crap sucks!</p>
<p>It works just fine for me.</p>
<p>Wu, once again, you complain in the wrong place. No one here can fix or help you with a SIS problem.</p>
<p>Hitting “print” once can save a flurry of headaches later…or inputting your schedule into a computer-based calendar program, or a web-based schedule like on Google…</p>
<p>Nothing works well at 3:18 a.m. (people or machines)…GO TO BED!!!</p>
<p>wahoogirl08: ummm, did you get into all the classes you wanted? </p>
<p>I mean I have enrollment requests and a lot of classes to sit in and competing classes for the same time slot so no I don’t think a simple printing before would have saved me.</p>
<p>Wu: I’ve already finished my time at UVA, but I had more than my fair share of semesters where I had to play around with my schedule for a week or two.</p>
<p>Even if printing didn’t work, you could have found another way than relying solely on the SIS. After working at the state level of government for about a year, I’ve learned that there are much worse web-based database/info-systems in existence, that are FAR more deserving of being shot into space…</p>
<p>It would be a lot more fun to note down your schedule on paper if SIS weren’t so horribly laggy!</p>
<p>Let e-schoolers design it! It would be less laggy and we wouldn’t have to pay Oracle millions of dollars each year for their crappy proprietary PeopleSoft software! It would also be transparent and open-source, which would allow students to continually improve it – a form of self-governance. Isn’t that the Jeffersonian spirit?</p>
<p>Despite the fact that they are wonderful, I don’t think the e-school students can design a cradle to grave Student Information System. SISs are huge. They cover every function from the time a person enters the UVa world as a prospect through their entire life. There’s a reason these systems cost a lot of money.</p>
<p>You seem to create these threads pretty regularly. Last time, a first year student said they didn’t have any problems with the SIS. As expected, those who were comfortable with ISIS are having a hard time transitioning. What’s funny to me is that ISIS was bad. It may have worked for you, but it wasn’t the best system for the University.</p>
<p>As one woman who has been at UVa for over 20 years told me “we had to get used to ISIS and we’ll get used to this, too.” Her world wasn’t rocked by the implementation. Those who only knew ISIS seemed to have a harder time with the transition.</p>
<p>Also I don’t get why Oracle has to use this fancy-shmancy AJAX protocol thing when a fast, streamlined php engine would work. AND GUESS WHAT SIS WOULDN’T CONSTANTLY CRASH ALL THE TIME AT THE WORSE MOMENTS. </p>
<p>AJAX is flashy and “looks” professional, but looks are deceiving. For one, it’s more resource-intensive, and guess what happens when 2000 people are on at the same time? </p>
<p>It would be a lot easier to play around with your schedule and cross-compare all your prospective courses if you know, the underlying structure of your schedule was a dynamic matrix, not a bunch of poorly-designed restrictive AJAX buttons that I bet have security loopholes.</p>
<p>Too bad CC wasn’t down at 0320.</p>
<p><em>like</em></p>
<p>lol</p>
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<p>In fact, SIS is used as an example of bad programming in a large percentage of CS classes. Students make a working IM client in their 2nd semester. I have no doubt they could do it. Your request for your stats took me 20 minutes and I am not a major, I have only taken 1 class in the department. The systems cost so much because they can make that much off of them.</p>
<p>DeanJ: I’m not sure if you work with open-source programming a lot, but coders enter and leave open source projects all the time. That’s the sort of project I envision with a student-run project – because the source code is open and transparent, it’s easy for someone else to take up the reins.</p>
<p>(And of course there could be a permanent faculty member which would be the organising, managerial force throughout the years. He/she wouldn’t cost millions of dollars a year either.) </p>
<p>I must really really really question the school’s choice when it comes to software. Those millions of dollars could have been spent on other things. Like you know, unbreaking students’ hearts when it comes to axing beloved classes? It’s ridiculous, Dean J. There are so many courses taught last year that are not taught this year because of the recession. People are cost-cutting everywhere. And they want to spend millions of dollars a year on fluff.</p>
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<p>ISIS was bad, but it wasn’t pull your hair out <em>horrible</em>. I thought ISIS could have been designed better, but at least it was <em>fast</em>. </p>
<p>Perhaps you’re talking from the perspective of being faculty, and maybe ISIS wasn’t as “integrated” as its name set it out to be?</p>
<p>The idea that “this project’s importance/impact is big, therefore I must code an extremely big big system” is not a very good programming paradigm.</p>
<p>To see an example of an efficient and reliable operating system in which few people were paid to make (most people were volunteers collaborators), see Linux. Its code also happens to be open-source and transparent. To see an example of an obese and unrealiable operating system made by developers with a huge payroll, see Microsoft Windows. Now, I have to use Windows myself because that is the culture of the consumer-end here, but if you ask any savvy server administrator what OS they use – they almost certainly do not use Windows. Inexperienced server administrators use Windows servers … and then get struck with security breaches. I believe CC uses a classic Apache-on-RedHat (I think?).</p>
<p>I am ranting here because there is no other real forum for complaining. I mean, really – there isn’t a “Questions? Comments?” link in SIS. That’s because the University appears to have no control over the development of its own system – it gets controlled by a bunch of guys in a random office in Oracle. Guess what would happen if it were student-run? A bunch of students would prolly be fixing various issues with SIS right now, and coming up with various project proposals. (I mean if I were skilled enough with web programming, I’d be – if I knew what the source code was I’d be.)</p>
<p>One of the lessons of college is how to break down a big project into tiny little bits. That’s how stuff gets done. It also allows stuff to be contributed by people who otherwise wouldn’t be in the project. SIS unfortunately, appears to have no sense of modularity, so modularity would be one of the first issues to fix. A good example of this model working is Wikipedia. That’s why it’s been so successful. Of course, a SIS-like project would have to be more protected and we would know the identity of all the contributors.</p>
<p>DeanJ, just to show I’m not like totally biased, here are some good things about SIS:</p>
<p>You don’t have to request a new transcript every time you want to see your unofficial transcript </p>
<p>Some scheduling features are nice. (Unfortunately, some of them also lead to annoying secondary impacts.) </p>
<p>The integrated notifications thing is pretty cool (if it wasn’t just a major pain to access them and view everything)</p>
<p>The attempted integration of course registration and COD, overlooking the lagginess and navigation …</p>
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ISIS was not “cradle to grave”. It was so bad that many (most?) offices had shadow systems that were only as good as the best technical person in the office. </p>
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You don’t seem to have read my responses the last time you created this thread. This system isn’t being managed or controlled by Oracle.</p>
<p>[SSP</a> Home](<a href=“http://www.sis.virginia.edu/]SSP”>http://www.sis.virginia.edu/)
[What</a> Is SSP](<a href=“http://www.sis.virginia.edu/whatisssp/story.html]What”>http://www.sis.virginia.edu/whatisssp/story.html)
[SSP</a> Contact Information](<a href=“http://www.sis.virginia.edu/contact.html]SSP”>http://www.sis.virginia.edu/contact.html) <— I thought you’d find this after I told you who to contact the last time</p>
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<p>Wu,</p>
<p>Here’s the answer. I got this email last week – didn’t you get it?</p>
<p>The University’s Office of Admissions, in an effort to ensure that only the best of the above average attend these hallowed Grounds, has executed an agreement with the Chinese Government. Certain participants in social forums deemed obnoxious will be labeled “undesirable” and will be unable to use SIS efficiently.</p>
<p>In addition, the University has instituted an additional graduation requirement. All participants in social forums must show proof they have talked to someone other themselves during their time at the University.</p>
<p>I don’t spend much of time on here if that’s what you’re saying.</p>
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<p>Then why are they so bad at tech support?! Who are we paying all this money to?</p>
<p>As the parent of a first-year student, this system appears to be wretched, and those who are supposed to help resolve user problems are unresponsive.</p>