Internet Technology Services (ITS) shut off the WiFi between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. to address this issue which, according to Missy Gansen, marketing and communications program manager for ITS, was not due to internal network malfunctions. To many students, this particular event serves as the continuation of a saga of poor internet connectivity and speed.
Christopher Victoria ’22 worried that he would be unable to post in a discussion board for his class requirements. “I was so out of luck,” he wrote in an email to The S&B.
With many classes contingent upon online access to platforms such as PioneerWeb, WiFi problems can pose a significant obstacle to homework submission and preparation for class.
Eric Ohrn, assistant professor of economics, said that he does not have an explicit policy to address outages. However, he wrote in an email to The S&B that “If a problem occurred that significantly inhibited my students’ ability to study or do their assigned work, I would do my best to make appropriate accommodations.” Ohrn specified that those accommodations would be specific to the course schedule as well as duration and intensity of the internet connectivity issues.
ITS employees work 24/7 to address any potential complications so that, when issues like Tuesday’s arise, they can address the problem immediately. “Even if a network issue pops up at 5 p.m., we work on the issue until it is fixed. Communication also is sent to affected users to inform them of wide-spread issues,” wrote Gansen.
Gansen stressed that if any student is experiencing a problem, such as connections dropping or inconsistent or slow connection speeds, they should reach out to ITS. “Walk us through what happened. Did you get any errors? What kind of device were you using? When did it happen? Where were you on campus? The more information we have, the better we will be able to troubleshoot and resolve the issue,” wrote Gansen.
Currently, there are no plans to replace the WiFi services. As Gansen said, ITS has not received any new complaints since last week