Staff Editorial: MySJU difficulties reveal larger IT issues

When we were in elementary school, teachers felt the need to tell us that a dog eating our homework was not an acceptable excuse. They never mentioned anything about the Internet doing it.

It's been a common refrain in classrooms at Saint Joseph's the last three weeks, though, thanks to the numerous difficulties MySJU and Blackboard have been experiencing since the school year started.

The inability of the university's Internet hosting platform to accommodate site traffic reveals a remarkable lack of preparation coming into this year. While part of the problems lie outside of the information technology department's direct control, the fact that there have been so many problems over the past few weeks demonstrate that there need to be much quicker, more direct ways of dealing with issues that affect so much of the university community. If site administrators are unable to maintain normal functioning of sites vital to students and faculty, then something needs to change.

The school's technological resources through the Office of Information Technology and Computing may be out of step with other departments on campus that have made it a priority to integrate technology into the classroom. Recent moves have been made towards expanding the number of "smart classrooms" on campus and adding features to the Web site including Wiki sites and blogs. The ability to upload assignments directly to a user-generated Web page is gradually becoming the norm. Increasing environmental consciousness and emphasis on going green means that instructors are relying less on print materials, both to and from students, and are exchanging information in an increasingly digital way.

The shifting reliance on Web portals for course assignments is also changing the impacts these blackouts have campus-wide. Just two or three years ago, site issues were merely annoying, with separate sites to access e-mail and Blackboard. But now, with vital sections of the site going down, including Blackboard and the "compose e-mail" features being inactive for stretches of time last week, the effect is crippling progress in classes that have bought into the tech movement.

Technological progress isn't measured by IT's involvement in Web sites considered in vogue, like their Twitter page @sjuit or a new blog site that ironically is used primarily to notify the university of Web site outages. It's based on the fulfillment of their mission, to give the university community "easy, personalized access to technology information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."

The Hawk Staff