Officials race to fix MyRecord
By: Chris Hokanson
Issue date: 1/17/08 Section: News
Students trying to access their schedules and transcripts through Texas A&M's MyRecord service will have trouble finding them - the online portal was partially closed Monday.
A&M officials said a problem occurred in which students logging in to their MyRecord accounts, which grant access to personal information such as transcripts and statements, were shown other students' MyRecord information. Citing privacy issues, administrators decided to close down a majority of the service.
"We're working on it diligently and around the clock," said Pete Marchbanks, interim executive director of Computing and Information Services. "We don't want to bring it back up if someone's information could be compromised."
Information within MyRecord is handled by A&M's Registrar's Office, but the online portal is managed by CIS. Officials from both departments stressed that the problem is serious enough to warrant shutting down most of the service.
"We took down just about all access to MyRecord except for registration and fee payment, because this is an important week and we want to make sure students get enrolled in the right classes," said Registrar Don Carter.
Carter said that the Registrar's Office has an idea as to what the problem might be, but the department is pretty sure of what it is not.
"We're almost positive that it is not a case where someone has hacked into the system," he said. "We think it's a case of a different software that was added and had some unanticipated impact. The errors that are occurring are very infrequent and random, but they're very serious."
Officials aren't sure when the service will be fully operational again, but they hope it will be back in place by Friday.
"If we knew what was causing it, it would be relatively easy to fix," Marchbanks said. "But we're still diagnosing. We know what happened, we don't know why it happened."
The Registrar's office received calls during the winter break regarding students shown MyRecord pages that weren't theirs. The office contacted CIS and thought it fixed the problem, Carter said, but when the A&M-wide e-mail sent Monday that reminded students to double-check their schedules on MyRecord, students were still gaining access to others' records. CIS decided to take down most of the MyRecord service.
CIS is also in the middle of a major overhaul to the campus e-mail system, Neo, but Marchbanks said that the MyRecord problem takes precedence.
"Right now, we'd rather fix our immediate operational problem with MyRecord," he said. "But all of it is going on at the same time. Some of our people are working on the Neo conversion and some are working on fixing MyRecord.
"If we have to take resources away from the Neo conversion in order to fix MyRecord, we're going to do it."
If students need to do things other than add or drop classes or make payments through the AggiE-pay system, Carter said they should direct all requests to their academic advisers.
Carter said that although MyRecord is partially down, students can still add and drop classes. As a result, the add-drop deadline, which is Friday, will not be extended.
A&M officials said a problem occurred in which students logging in to their MyRecord accounts, which grant access to personal information such as transcripts and statements, were shown other students' MyRecord information. Citing privacy issues, administrators decided to close down a majority of the service.
"We're working on it diligently and around the clock," said Pete Marchbanks, interim executive director of Computing and Information Services. "We don't want to bring it back up if someone's information could be compromised."
Information within MyRecord is handled by A&M's Registrar's Office, but the online portal is managed by CIS. Officials from both departments stressed that the problem is serious enough to warrant shutting down most of the service.
"We took down just about all access to MyRecord except for registration and fee payment, because this is an important week and we want to make sure students get enrolled in the right classes," said Registrar Don Carter.
Carter said that the Registrar's Office has an idea as to what the problem might be, but the department is pretty sure of what it is not.
"We're almost positive that it is not a case where someone has hacked into the system," he said. "We think it's a case of a different software that was added and had some unanticipated impact. The errors that are occurring are very infrequent and random, but they're very serious."
Officials aren't sure when the service will be fully operational again, but they hope it will be back in place by Friday.
"If we knew what was causing it, it would be relatively easy to fix," Marchbanks said. "But we're still diagnosing. We know what happened, we don't know why it happened."
The Registrar's office received calls during the winter break regarding students shown MyRecord pages that weren't theirs. The office contacted CIS and thought it fixed the problem, Carter said, but when the A&M-wide e-mail sent Monday that reminded students to double-check their schedules on MyRecord, students were still gaining access to others' records. CIS decided to take down most of the MyRecord service.
CIS is also in the middle of a major overhaul to the campus e-mail system, Neo, but Marchbanks said that the MyRecord problem takes precedence.
"Right now, we'd rather fix our immediate operational problem with MyRecord," he said. "But all of it is going on at the same time. Some of our people are working on the Neo conversion and some are working on fixing MyRecord.
"If we have to take resources away from the Neo conversion in order to fix MyRecord, we're going to do it."
If students need to do things other than add or drop classes or make payments through the AggiE-pay system, Carter said they should direct all requests to their academic advisers.
Carter said that although MyRecord is partially down, students can still add and drop classes. As a result, the add-drop deadline, which is Friday, will not be extended.
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