Software glitch purges spring classes

 

Due to a software error that occurred after the Dec. 19 midnight tuition payment deadline, university officials were scrambling Thursday morning to fix the glitch which purged all spring classes and sent automated email notifications to students stating their courses were dropped for non-payment.

 

 

With new registration policies put into effect this year, students had to pay spring tuition by Dec. 19 at midnight, otherwise their classes would be dropped for non-payment. The deadline passed, but not without a major hiccup.

 

 

“After midnight, there’s a process that marks people in the system who are not supposed to be purged before the purge takes place,” said Ray Walker, associate vice president of information technology. “Because of an error with the Oracle software, a thing called a ‘table lock’ which is not supposed to happen, that program failed and the process didn’t complete, so the process ran and purged almost every student.”

 

 

Only about 800 students were not purged from their classes, before a lock in the system occurred.

 

 

A notification was put up on the UVLink login page and an email was sent out advising students not to panic because of the dropped classes, ensuring their spring schedules would be restored.

 

 

“My first reaction was, ‘what? They dropped my classes? How can they do that? I paid,’” said Amy Rose, a deaf studies major. “Then after I read the emails, I realized it happened to everyone, not just me.”

 

 

Walker said all classes are now updated again for students and they are moving forward with completing the purge process a second time.

 

 

“We’re in the process of re-running the process to purge those students that were supposed to be purged. By early afternoon, everything should be back to the way it was supposed to be,” said Walker.

 

 

Between 500 to 1,000 students are expected to be purged this spring for non-payment.