From Ron Woody this morning:
Due to a major disk failure, the it.emich.edu website and several supported web applications are currently down. Division of Information Technology (DoIT) staff are working on the issue now and estimate that affected systems will be restored around 2:00 p.m. today.
Affected systems include (not exhaustive):
- it.emich.edu website
- online campus directory
- online admissions application process
- parking hangtag system
- access to the Apple Computers custom store for EMU departmental purchases
- EMU_NTDOMAIN password resets
- McAfee Antivirus downloads for home computersThe main launch page for the Banner ERP application is also affected. During the downtime, Banner users may access the application via the https://inb.emich.edu:14010/forms/frmservlet?config=berp site.
If you have any questions, please contact the IT Help Desk at (734) 487-2120 or by email at it.helpdesk@emich.edu.
This explains why something I was trying to find over the weekend didn’t work. The good news though is it doesn’t seem to have impacted email, emuonline, and some other key services. Let’s see if it works by 2 pm today…..
Strangely, this email from Mr Woody does not say when the disk crashed….And, email was down most of yesterday, for at least some users of myemich, but there was no announcement or explanation about that.
I’m sure its an intentional shut down in order to hack the files of all EMU faculty and staff. That is the only possible explanation for an I.T. guy not providing any and all information in an e-mail about a disk failure.
Ha! Probably not, Mr. Conspiracyguy… For the record, my email has worked just fine for me all weekend. Though it.emich.edu is not working as of right now.
Mr Woody has kindly explained to me that part of the problem seems to be which portal one may seek to access myemich email thru. It hadn’t even registered on me that the myemich portal is not the preferred one, anymore. I much appreciate his detailed responses and his efforts to identify and resolve the problems.
There’s no conspiracy. There may be some flaws in the system, but no conspiracy.
Is Mr Conspiracyguy trying to be funny, or is he trying to shut down all suggestions that things at EMU could be improved?
I was trying to suggest that if people are hard at work trying to fix a problem that was obviously unintentional they might not have the time to inform every faculty and staff member of every detail. We at this University constantly complain about being open and transparent, its becoming a little rediculous when we are now extending that to ” major disk failure”.
The other day on campus I observed a light bulb not working in one of the parking lots, believe it or not I didn’t call the physical plant and demand to know how long the light had been out and when the light bulb will be replaced.
I’d also like to point out that when someone in the University administration, I.T. Department, Police Department, Physical Plant, or several other departments on campus makes a mistake we openly discuss the mistake on this forum and critique it from every angle.
Its a shame we are unable to sit through every class instructed by every professor to make sure they are being held to the same standard as the more scrutinized members of the University community.
Ah, Conspiracyguy, your mode of argumentation involves little more than exaggerating to the Nth degree, proclaiming absolute circumstances that plainly do not exist (we “critique it from every angle”), and making assumptions that cannot be verified. Plus, you take a gratuitous slap at faculty advocates of institutional reform and improvement, and you do so with the cloak of anonymity, thus recusing yourself from accountability for your ideas. (Maybe you failed to notice that EMU’s official values include reform and improvement.)
Your leap from a real and admitted problem with the IT systems to your accusation that sub-standard teaching prevails at EMU is an illogical but clearly defensive attempt to change the subject. No university community member should make such weak cases for their positions! Doing so dishonors the speaker, and the campus! No connection whatsoever warrants introducing that new topic to this thread, aside from an apparent inability to argue the case at hand using relevant facts.
By the way, EMU Faculty members ARE regularly evaluated with a formal and official process that produces a public record. EMU faculty members are also hired thru national job searches. Neither fact mentioned in the last two sentences are true of most members of the administrative-professional ranks at EMU.
Excuse me for taking umbrage at conspiracyguy’s cowardly insinuation that EMU lacks a quality faculty. We have an outstanding faculty, and i am proud to be part of it.
EMU also has countless capable administrators. Ron Woody is one of the many capable and hard working folks in DoIT. He’s acknowledged that the EagleMail system has some problems that need tending. That’s part of leadership – admitting improvements are needed, and welcoming the message rather than shooting the messenger.
Perhaps Conspiracyguy is one of the many experienced “shooters of messengers” so well trained over the years by the Welch hall gang. They’ve done much damage to my University, producing endless excuses for scandalous behavior and substandard practices over a period of years. Now is past time for these hitmen to all reform, repent, and sin no more, for the good of the University.
Wow that was a very well written and intelligent answer to a question no one asked.
You can take umbrage with what ever accusation you like, it doesn’t however make the belief that some professors at EMU don’t make the grade false.
I remember reading recently that a few professors were not given tenure, oddly enough it didn’t list the names of those professors or the reasons why they did not recieve tenure.
I hold two degrees from EMU and also belive the Univesity should strive to become the best institution possible.
I just believe that people who sit in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
If tomorrow morning a vice president from EMU makes a decision that ends up detrimental to the University it is safe to say in the post Fallon culture of EMU that that individual will lose their job.
I think all of us know professors at EMU that aren’t getting the job done in the classroom. How often do there names show up in the Ann Arbor news like former police chiefs, vice presidents, presidents.
Believe it or not I don’t totally disagree with your agrument, I do think that on one hand you can’t accuse me of “exaggerating to the Nth degree” and then in turn accuse me of claiming EMU has a sub par faculty. I believe the majority of EMU professors are quality people who do a great job in their chosen profession.
Your argument would hold a little more water if you could acknowledge that faculty aren’t held to the same standard nor are the ineffective faculty dealt with as swiftly or in a public manor the way other Univesity officials have been.
When is the last time an EMU faculty member got held to task for giving a sub-par lecture or for that matter an entire semester’s worth lackluster instruction.
Now this is forum where ideas and issues with EMU are discussed, many times there aren’t two sides to an issue there are several, my side to this issue is that just because you’re a faculty member at a University doesn’t mean you have the right to badger every employee on campus to answer for their job and how they perform said job.
Do you think its appropriate for other professors, staff and students to come to your class and openly question the way you teach, and then imply that something is “fishy” just because they disagreed with something, kind of like when you accuse an I.T. employee of purposely ommitting information in an e-mail.
Mr. Higbee at the end of the day you’re a University a very noble profession and one when used to the benefit to those you teach an effective and some times inspiring job.
Proffesor, Janitor, Advisor, Police Officer, Secretary, Housing Employee, Physical plant and many other jobs at EMU are by nature customer service oriented. If the faculty at EMU worried a little more about doing the best job in the class room and a little less about what they think they’re entitled to I think EMU would be a little better for it, then again when you earn a PH.D your bowel movements immediately cease to smell and everything you say is like gospel.
Its not just the publicity of some EMU employees who have screwed up, its the attitude and general distain for the rest of the University community I see on a daily basis from some faculty, you’re not god, you’re a professor. I know it gets a fuzzy sometimes.
“STRANGELY”
I’ll let this last comment stand, Mr. Conspiracyguy (if that is indeed your real name), but I think this is starting to cross a line here a bit. First off, you are taking an argumentative strategy that is kind of annoying, immature, and one that I suspect I am guilty of myself from time to time: you have taken a criticism being leveled from a faculty person to IT folk and trying to turn it around into a criticism of faculty, as in “I think all of us know professors at EMU that aren’t getting the job done in the classroom. How often do there names show up in the Ann Arbor news like former police chiefs, vice presidents, presidents.” This is the “I know you are, but what am I?” gambit, and that only goes so far.
And as an aside, I don’t ever recall anyone on staff at EMU– I’m not talking about the administrator class here– ever being highlighted personally here or in the newspaper or anywhere else for screwing up. So I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
Second, I don’t think Higbee is really accusing anyone in particular about this disk failure. As far as I can tell, the only ICT person he’s mentioned is Ron Woody, and he’s said good things about him. So, what’s the issue there?
Third, there is a very good reason why the situation involving the two faculty denied tenure rather mysteriously (and, in my view, incorrectly and perhaps illegally) by the Board of Regents: this was more or less the subject of this post. And I think you’re fundamentally misunderstanding the process here: there are lots and LOTS of steps faculty have to go through be granted tenure (not to mention getting hired in the first place), and if someone is not going to get tenured or promoted, that happens a long time before it gets to the BoR.
And finally, this just wasn’t that big of a deal, people. I posted about it because it’s kind of quiet news around here and because back in late August 2007, there was a royal flush of a screw-up with EMU’s former email system. This particular failure wasn’t near as dramatic, far-reaching, or long-lasting.
So settle down, okie dokie?
An alert reader sent me one minor clarification regarding this disk error and how it impacted stuff like emuonline: students and faculty who access emuonline via my.emich did run into some trouble with this disk error, but you can avoid this by logging into emuonline.edu directly. And the emuonline site (which is hosted off-site, btw) has very few problems, less than .2% down time, according to this alert reader.
sorry wrong post