Banner was inaccessible yesterday morning when the site experienced a server overload at 8 a.m., the start of registration period for returning students. The problems lasted from 8:01 to 8:45 a.m., according to an announcement on the Computing and Information Services website, which described the problems as "technical difficulties."
Upon observing the system error, CIS rebooted the server, which remedied the problem, wrote Michael Pickett, vice president for CIS, in an email to The Herald. CIS notified the vendor of the malfunction.
The problem caused difficulties for students who were unable to find out locations for classes on the first day of shopping period. To rectify the issue, the Office of the Registrar sent an email out at 8:37 a.m. directing students to the Registrar's website to confirm room assignments.
Katie Kartheiser '15 was among those who had trouble finding her first class when online access to her schedule was shut down. "I was trying to register for my classes (when it didn't work), and then I went back to sleep," she said. "But then I was eating breakfast, and I panicked because I realized I didn't know where my class was." Since she knew the class was in Metcalf, Kartheiser wandered through the building until she was able to find the class, she said.
It was not the first time this academic year that Banner fell victim to excessive use. When pre-registration opened for first-years in September, the site went down for close to an hour.
Students across campus expressed frustration with the server's inability to process student demand.
Andrew Chen '12 was attempting to register for some popular classes in his last semester at Brown, but by the time Banner came back up, the spots were filled. Citing the reputations of the University and the computer science department, he said students should not face such registration obstacles.
"Education is what we come to college for, and if people can't even get the classes they want," then the system is flawed, he said. Given the problems Banner has faced in the past due to an overload of students registering, Chen said the University should have found a way to prevent these problems by now.
— Additional reporting by Kate Nussenbaum
An earlier version of this article stated that Banner crashed Wednesday morning as registration opened. In fact, the server did not crash, according to Michael Pickett, vice president for computing and information services and chief information officer. CIS observed a problem in the system and fixed it by shutting down and rebooting the server.
