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Old 06-12-2010 at 11:27 PM   #136
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Quote:
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Keep your eye out for Peter on the 17th. Wouldn't want him hopping in a new Bugatti or anything.
that man is dirty rich. even after he leaves the school will pay him upwards of $100k/year for chilling at home.
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Old 06-13-2010 at 12:23 PM   #137
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It would be useful if they had something that listed if courses were still open or not and you could refresh the page to check. Probably be hard to figure out, but if they;re willing to use 10 million to rip out the guts...
Old 06-13-2010 at 02:50 PM   #138
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Quote:
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It would be useful if they had something that listed if courses were still open or not and you could refresh the page to check. Probably be hard to figure out, but if they;re willing to use 10 million to rip out the guts...
That would be slightly difficult. You would still need to log into MUGSI because sections of courses are reserved for certain groups. So if the page was just general then the information shown wouldn't be of any help.
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Old 06-13-2010 at 04:45 PM   #139
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10-20 Million!!! The System doesn't need a god damn overhaul. It needs improvements. Limiting the time? Increasing server bandwith or something... its just a matter of re-writing some of the code. Not having an entire new program.
Well "coding it better" and "Getting extra bandwidth" as quick easy fixes are sadly myths in the case of SOLAR.

Since they are so obvious I have actually suggested them to more then one person in UTS, however the answer in short has been that we can "possibly" do a bit of that but the actual costs because of the prehistoric coding/IT Infrastructure of Student Records system means it will end up costing alot of money.

The CIO gave me a simple option, a) We can get this minor cosmetic changes in there that will slightly improve the system for a certain six/low seven figure cost or b) We can do a long run overhaul that most Ontario Universities are going through in the past few years(Waterloo recently), the long run overhaul will render incompatible any changes made with option "A" because they will be going with a brand new systems provider. Therefore the Admin will economically favor the latter.

But in my opinion the main issue here is that there is a lack of incentive for the administration to spend that amount of money "just" on SOLAR because having a low ease of registration doesn't stop thousands of students from applying to Mac Every year nor does it make current students pack up shop and leave(Keeping in mind that places like Uoft suffer from similar issues with their ROSI system). Sure there is a firestorm in the summer but it dies down soon enough, as someone who tried to lobby the university to get it changed it was a very hard sell, but atleast they did hire the outside consultants who are almost done their report and we have been promised improvements.

The tricky issue here is that SOLAR isn't a separate entity, it was built as a direct part of student records and was supposed to hold no more then 10,000 or so students at max. With the Double Batch(In 05 or 06 where they eliminated Grade 13) and exponential student enrollment it was by no means designed to hold 22,000 students. Hence what has happened is that they have applied patches and tape over the years to hold it together while the core itself is no longer capable of supporting 22,000 students. In other words we can't directly tweak aspects of SOLAR without affecting student records.

And lastly I haven't been able to procure a breakdown since the costs are very much estimated based on similar upgrades at other Canadian universities, the "actual" figure will only be determined after a RFP later on this summer(Or so I heard) and will most probably not be revealed to any outsiders like the MSU. The figure was not just for SOLAR itself but the entire Student Records department(Which is disturbingly manually fed) and accounting & payroll, libraries, research and so on. In other words the entire IT Infrastructure.

p.s: Unfortunately with my election to "External" affairs I will no longer be able to pursue these issues because they no longer fall under my mandate, if you have any questions or concerns you can email the University affairs Commissioner [email protected] ca or the President Mary Koziol [email protected] r.ca who have taken over my Google Apps project as well.
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Last edited by huzaifa47 : 06-13-2010 at 04:47 PM.
Old 06-13-2010 at 05:15 PM   #140
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The MSU president is more concerned with creating shorter lines at the Union Market. Somehow I don't think overhauling Solar is on her radar.

Overhaul Solar. 10-20mil is pocket change.
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Old 06-13-2010 at 09:24 PM   #141
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Its already starting and its not even 12 yet. I have to wake up 6 tmmmorow morning *sigh*
Old 06-13-2010 at 09:25 PM   #142
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Quote:
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Its already starting and its not even 12 yet. I have to wake up 6 tmmmorow morning *sigh*
It's already full? Maybe it's just people who SOLAR is already open for....
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Old 06-13-2010 at 09:31 PM   #143
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well mugsi was for a while there but I was able to get in but wit the 45 min time limit I will have to log in again *sigh*
Old 06-13-2010 at 09:38 PM   #144
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Quote:
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well mugsi was for a while there but I was able to get in but wit the 45 min time limit I will have to log in again *sigh*
Yeah, I usually try around 40 because it only takes a couple minutes to select my courses.
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Old 06-13-2010 at 09:46 PM   #145
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Also as an addendum Waitlisting was the main issue I've already discussed and asked for since I gathered from a few places(MI mostly) that most of the traffic on SOLAR is people repeatedly trying to check and see if the course they want has opened up or not, unfortunately the response was the same that it would take a 6/7 figure sum to specfically get waitlisting and we are better off wating for the big overhaul. I've also relayed the demand to Gartner counsulting who held a focus group with myself, another SRA member and former MSU President in April.
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Old 06-13-2010 at 09:57 PM   #146
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jhan523 View Post
Aha, yeah. It does take longer to figure out what courses you want to take. Selecting courses only takes a couple minutes (not counting the time it takes to get on).
Well yeah, I'm including the time it takes to get on. It's been going without a hitch for me this whole time.

I don't get it lol
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Old 06-13-2010 at 10:12 PM   #147
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Quote:
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Well yeah, I'm including the time it takes to get on. It's been going without a hitch for me this whole time.

I don't get it lol
Some people are just lucky like that. On the day I registered SOLAR kept on crashing (I assume it's crashing, it kept on saying that it couldn't load the page). My friend also was experiencing it but at one point he got a lucky break and actually managed to pick all his courses without it happening.
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Old 06-13-2010 at 10:40 PM   #148
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Well, I guess I cursed myself. I can't get onto MUGSI. I'm currently registered in 24 units and have to drop it down to 6 now that I just found a co-op job
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Old 06-13-2010 at 10:45 PM   #149
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At least your -registered-
Old 06-13-2010 at 10:55 PM   #150
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Well, T-minus 5 minutes...



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