With a torrent of users attempting to add and drop courses, most students are by this point used to U of T’s student web service being a little difficult to access at the beginning of the semester.
But after experiencing long periods without the ability to log on to the Repository of Student Information, or ROSI, in the past few weeks, many say they have had it.
For fourth-year philosophy specialist Angela Misasi, it nearly set her back a term from graduating.
“I couldn’t access ROSI from January sixth to the fourteenth,” she complained. “I needed to switch classes and pick up classes to graduate. I couldn’t sign in, when I did sign in it wouldn’t let me access anything. They need to create a need-based opportunity for those who need a course to graduate or towards a degree to have first crack.”
ROSI, the cutely-named service with its own cartoon robot mascot, allows students to do a multitude of things online, from adding courses to viewing their invoices and grades.
“It’s unpleasant,” said student information systems client services manager Jennifer Leigh. “We know that in the first week of January the traffic is twice as high as normal, but we have more students than before and that leads to a higher demand for resources.
“We are currently trying to augment the technical difficulties and try to reassess the system so more resources become available.”
ROSI was implemented in 1999, and it also allows administration and faculty to access marks and regulate course enrollment. It requires a considerable amount of resources to keep it running smoothly.
“ROSI doesn’t really have ‘bugs.’ We encounter hardware failure. It’s an unfortunate built-in redundancy so that when one system is down, the rest don’t crash as well,” explained Leigh.
Right next to the ROSI login warning, students can also see the disabled link to Degree Navigator, a buggy program that U of T installed relatively recently, but is now indefinitely out of service.
“Degree Navigator isn’t our system, so when it’s down the glitch has to do with the vendor, so we wait on them,” Said Leigh, “We aren’t happy with the situation, it’s unacceptable, and we are trying to fix it. You guys pay for this service and you deserve better.”
Assistant dean and faculty registrar for arts and science, George Altmeyer, said in extreme circumstances, dates will be adjusted.
“We do make allowances if, say, the system is down on the last day to add or drop courses. Then we extend the date. But the first thing a student should do if they can’t access ROSI is go to their registrar’s office.”
“I understand that every system needs time to sort out glitches,” said Misasi. “But when you need transcripts for grad school, or to add a class in order to graduate, not being able to access the system created for this job just makes you crazy.”
