Registration can be a stressful time for students, especially those who require specific classes to graduate. When it comes time to log in and create your schedule, the last thing you want to see is an error message. However, several Wilfrid Laurier University students were met with that sight this month.
On July 4, I logged into LORIS to register for my classes for the 2023/2024 year. I’m going into my fourth year as a film studies major and need to ensure I get my proper credits since I changed programs after my second year.
When I got into the registration site, it would let me get as far as choosing which semester I was registering for, before displaying some strange error messages and ultimately locking me out.
I checked in with some friends and found they were having similar experiences. The site would load to a specific point, and then display a collection of error messages. After a while of waiting, the system worked normally, and I was able to register for my classes.
“The biggest issue for me is that I’m in my final year and need to enroll in certain lectures and seminars so I can graduate” said a fourth-year student when asked about the site registration issues.
“The stress about possibly losing a spot in one of the needed classes was ridiculous when it’s already a stressful time to begin with”.
When contacted for comment, ICT and Enrolment Services were able to provide insight into what went wrong.
They explained that prior to registration periods, Laurier’s ICT department locks out most of the administrative staff to ease traffic on the site. On July 4, due to human error in “a manual intake of administrative user lockout exemptions processes”, the system malfunctioned and locked out students rather than administrators.
Following a server restart, the system returned to working normally and the downtime was reported to be 30 minutes.
ICT and Enrolment Services shared a statement from Shelagh Pepper, interim registrar on the future of monitoring Laurier’s systems: “We have made improvements every year based on known and observed issues as well as feedback from students obtained through an annual survey. It is unfortunate that what could have been a flawless registration period experienced an issue that impacted students in a registration window. The annual improvements will continue to be made to the process”.