Originally Posted by Jaff24

I dont get it? Why haven;t they improved the system if they know each year that students deal with this kind of stuff.

sorry, I'm a newb to the forum and also to mac :p

I suppose they're "reallocating funds" to other "necessities" such as construction, renovations, our academic programs etc.
But I think people in the administration tend to forget...it doesn't matter how good the academic program is...if you can't pick the courses to major in it in a way where you learn the most you can about program X.

Originally Posted by Toast

Anyone else find that when you click "Last" in this thread, nothing really happens?

For real! I used to do that and now I use the red "Click to see the newest post" thing.... never noticed :O

Originally Posted by resh.jyoti

For real! I used to do that and now I use the red "Click to see the newest post" thing.... never noticed :O

Lol, that makes things a whole lot easier.

Just a comment on the earlier discussion about whether there is a way to find out how BAD McMaster Registration system is. There is actually a way(Not exactly 100% reliable, but atleast it gives a rough estimated idea)!

http://static.globecampus.ca /uploa...artsOnly.pd f

That link above is the Globe & Mail 2010 Annual Canadian University Report; McMaster IS the lowest(Tied with UofCalgary) with a C+ grade for "Ease of Registration". I actually relayed that fact very clearly to the CIO and he did agree with me that our registration systems need help, that is why a consultancy company was hired and most probably Mac is going to invest in an overhaul.


But here is the other thing, McMaster got 2nd best in the larger schools with an A- when it comes to overall "Most Satisfied" students, now If I were an Administrator of the University I would pay more attention to that and be less concerned that I might be losing students because they are dissatisfied or that Mac is getting a Bad Rep with future students.

As Fiona mentioned most people also seem to be quite happy with the Quality of Education(A-). Ease of Registration doesn't negatively impact what we learn nor our experience with the community(Like for example extra curricular opportunities, social events and so on); rather it is more of an "inconvenience" that people go through. The only major downfall is people not being able to get certain courses/electives they want because they couldn't get in, but on the other hand "someone else" gets that instead of you in a random lottery of "who gets in first", whose to say who deserved getting into that course more?

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

Just a comment on the earlier discussion about whether there is a way to find out how BAD McMaster Registration system is. There is actually a way(Not exactly 100% reliable, but atleast it gives a rough estimated idea)!

http://static.globecampus.ca /uploa...artsOnly.pd f

That link above is the Globe & Mail 2010 Annual Canadian University Report; McMaster IS the lowest(Tied with UofCalgary) with a C+ grade for "Ease of Registration". I actually relayed that fact very clearly to the CIO and he did agree with me that our registration systems need help, that is why a consultancy company was hired and most probably Mac is going to invest in an overhaul.


But here is the other thing, McMaster got 2nd best in the larger schools with an A- when it comes to overall "Most Satisfied" students, now If I were an Administrator of the University I would pay more attention to that and be less concerned that I might be losing students because they are dissatisfied or that Mac is getting a Bad Rep with future students.

As Fiona mentioned most people also seem to be quite happy with the Quality of Education(A-). Ease of Registration doesn't negatively impact what we learn nor our experience with the community(Like for example extra curricular opportunities, social events and so on); rather it is more of an "inconvenience" that people go through. The only major downfall is people not being able to get certain courses/electives they want because they couldn't get in, but on the other hand "someone else" gets that instead of you in a random lottery of "who gets in first", whose to say who deserved getting into that course more?

I had no idea the McMaster had that low of a standing when it came to registration.

Question - why would one waste finances hiring a consultant company? It's not like the university is rapidly losing money, or overall standing, and they need a professional business to find the proverbial leak. Simple problems require simple solutions - use the money hire a tech company, or get some students to overhaul the system and increase server capacity.

Also, why is it becoming so hard to get into mandatory program courses. Here's an idea, you have an expected number of people per program, so reserve that many seats with the course. Create a system where, when someone who received an offer of admission chooses another program, a reserved seat becomes available. It can't be that difficult.

Originally Posted by Toast

Also, why is it becoming so hard to get into mandatory program courses. Here's an idea, you have an expected number of people per program, so reserve that many seats with the course. Create a system where, when someone who received an offer of admission chooses another program, a reserved seat becomes available. It can't be that difficult.

Witchcraft!

Originally Posted by Toast

I had no idea the McMaster had that low of a standing when it came to registration.

Question - why would one waste finances hiring a consultant company? It's not like the university is rapidly losing money, or overall standing, and they need a professional business to find the proverbial leak. Simple problems require simple solutions - use the money hire a tech company, or get some students to overhaul the system and increase server capacity.

As you can see here the company Gartner http://www.gartner.com/technology/re.../education.jsp are a world renowned company when it comes to identifying the issues with a complex IT infrastructure and recommending vendors and solutions for it. They are being hired to look at the entire IT system and MUGSI as a part of Student Records is a part of that.

I hope I don't sound cranky but I've answered this quite a number of times and it should be clear that MUGSI cannnot be taken apart and "fixed" by a ragtag bunch of students or a local tech company. It will require expensive companies with millions of dollars in R&D, the Education IT sector is very unique and different in that sense.

Same with "Increasing server capacity" and "overhauling the system": They are nothing more then buzzwords that everyday people(aka people without a strong background in Compsci;Including myself before I was briefed in detail about this by UTS) seem to throw around as "solutions". Sadly they aren't the solutions in this case, Student Records needs to be built from the ground up with the utmost care because of the sensitive nature of what it deals with.

There are only a few companies in North America(I think none in Canada) capable of doing that and they definitely don't come cheap.

I fully trust the CIO to make the right decision given his background in Infrastructure overhauls. He has made it quite clear in his strategic plan that systems overhaul is a priority; all that is required is the money and that bit is upto the McMaster Board Of Governors. And I'm not sure where this factors into their priority, after all we ALL got the Email from PG saying Mac faces a $100 Million deficit for the next year.

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

As you can see here the company Gartner http://www.gartner.com/technology/re.../education.jsp are a world renowned company when it comes to identifying the issues with a complex IT infrastructure and recommending vendors and solutions for it. They are being hired to look at the entire IT system and MUGSI as a part of Student Records is a part of that.

I hope I don't sound cranky but I've answered this quite a number of times and it should be clear that MUGSI cannnot be taken apart and "fixed" by a ragtag bunch of students or a local tech company. It will require expensive companies with millions of dollars in R&D, the Education IT sector is very unique and different in that sense.

Same with "Increasing server capacity" and "overhauling the system": They are nothing more then buzzwords that everyday people(aka people without a strong background in Compsci;Including myself before I was briefed in detail about this by UTS) seem to throw around as "solutions". Sadly they aren't the solutions in this case, Student Records needs to be built from the ground up with the utmost care because of the sensitive nature of what it deals with.

There are only a few companies in North America(I think none in Canada) capable of doing that and they definitely don't come cheap.

I fully trust the CIO to make the right decision given his background in Infrastructure overhauls. He has made it quite clear in his strategic plan that systems overhaul is a priority; all that is required is the money and that bit is upto the McMaster Board Of Governors. And I'm not sure where this factors into their priority, after all we ALL got the Email from PG saying Mac faces a $100 Million deficit for the next year.

I definitely agree with everything you've said; I'm just astonished that no one had the foresight to predict the need for a better infrastructure. Was this something that could have been done gradually over time, or is it a one-time upgrade with a single, massive sum of money? Also, is there a reason why it took McMaster so long to hop on the registration band-wagon, as it were?

Originally Posted by Toast

I definitely agree with everything you've said; I'm just astonished that no one had the foresight to predict the need for a better infrastructure. Was this something that could have been done gradually over time, or is it a one-time upgrade with a single, massive sum of money? Also, is there a reason why it took McMaster so long to hop on the registration band-wagon, as it were?

I'm not sure to be honest, MUGSI was created for a much smaller student body and it seemed to server its purpose pretty well until student enrollments started rising exponentially and that was also made worse by that one year where two batches graduated because they eliminated grade 13.

MUGSI has been gradually been "improved" over time, not to a large extent but enough to keep it mildly functional. But since it is part of student records, which itself is linked to other areas I guess you couldn't directly address one issue without disabling the rest.

Maybe they didn't consider it a priority? Maybe they never got around to finding enough money in their budget to allocate? McMaster has always been overspending its budget from what I heard because of its desires to punch above its weight and compete with other Universities(Mostly in the expensive research division) with larger funding and donation bases. Mac prides itself on being higher in the rankings then other similar sized Universities in Canada, but that ALWAYS comes with a price and trade off.

The talks of changing and improving it though have only started after the new CIO came in last year.

From my younger brother's admissions package thing:



I believe I looked like this at 3am the other day.

Originally Posted by dhyong

From my younger brother's admissions package thing:



I believe I looked like this at 3am the other day.

I like.
You can't tell if he's overjoyed or preparing to smash his monitor!

Lol what's with the cheesy acronyms. START video? HOT tips??

Hey,

You say thats millions of dollars need to be spent on MUGSI....

How on earth does it come out to millions of dollars? Please explain.

Originally Posted by Cassanova

Hey,

You say thats millions of dollars need to be spent on MUGSI....

How on earth does it come out to millions of dollars? Please explain.

I wasn't given a specific figure but a general briefing by the CIO. The reason being that his quote is based entirely on estimates from past experience and looking at similar projects conducted at Other Canadian Universities.

Alot of it is specialized knowledge and expertise and only a few companies in North America(eg: Peoplesoft) are capable of handling intricate IT Education infrastructures. Therefore a good amount of premium is charged by them, they spend millions on R&D that none of the smaller companies can manage hence the smaller ones won't ever get a contract like McMaster.

And the figure was for the entire system not just MUGSI, MUGSI is just a portion of Student Records. Other stuff that will be looked at is Accounts & Payrolls/HR, Research, Libraries and Internal Networks and so on.

You won't just need staff from big companies to come in and train UTS staff but also a systems integrator(again a specialized job) whose prices start in middle six figures at minimum.

IT is actually a VERY expensive field and no wonder that Computer Science jobs are usually near the very top of top paying University degrees!

Even recently Wilfred Laurier Students Union spent $36,000 to get a blackberry/Iphone app for their students union. The MSU decided to spend l spent a comparatively less $5500 yesterday for our BlackBerry App. Other Modules for the website(Eg: Macslist, a Classified service for books and other things were people can login using their MacID, hence is legit etc) also cost 5k each. But the most surprising bit was ORBIS charging the MSU $80 an hour for labour costs, apparently that is the norm. I'm assuming the staff themselves earn atleast half of it.

Originally Posted by dhyong

From my younger brother's admissions package thing:



I believe I looked like this at 3am the other day.

I lol'ed when I got this in the mail the other day.