Published Tuesday, February 1, 2000

Software snarls student scores Statewire

OSHKOSH, Wis. (AP) -- A new computer system is blamed for a foul-up that allows University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh students to stay in school even though their grades are unsatisfactory.

Countless students can return for the spring semester because software does not reliably disclose their low scholastic averages that ordinarily could lead to suspension.

It cannot be determined how many students would have been eligible for suspension " but there could be several hundred students who have this loophole, " Registrar Dan Edlebeck said.

The problem applies to students who transferred from other universities and colleges, representing about one-fourth to one-third of the undergraduates, Edlebeck said.

Oshkosh employees were unable to download records of students from the old computer system to the new system before the semester' s end, said John Berens, assistant vice chancellor of information technology.

For two years, Oshkosh has been converting student records to a new software system called PeopleSoft. The conversion is costing more than $4 million.

The transfer was delayed because computer programmers had to spend much of the semester fixing problems after the software was installed, Berens said.

The Madison campus had a problem last spring trying to produce grade records on time.

Cleveland State University has spent nearly $10 million on new software and was unable to provide some students with financial aid checks.

At Oshkosh, students who do not maintain a 2-point grade-point average (GPA) for three consecutive semesters or whose semester GPA falls below 1 point can be suspended for one semester.

Some individual programs, including graduate programs, have more stringent guidelines.

Currently the university is unable to calculate accurate GPAs for all students.

The university mailed letters during the Christmas recess to undergraduates, explaining the problem and asking them to report voluntarily to their advisers if their GPAs were low.

" We determined the best thing to do was say up front that we won' t do the calculations this one time and tell students that it' s still their responsibility to pay attention to their grades and their coursework and to work with advisers if they' re having problems, " Berens said.

" It doesn' t matter because I already know I have to do better this semester, " freshman Katie Bea of Milwaukee said.

Many students have visited their advisers, Edlebeck said.

" The letters generated quite a response, " he said.

The transfer of information should be complete by February or March, Berens said.

http://www2.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisStory=81337112

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), February 01, 2000

Answers

And before any naysayers say it...

This IS probably y2k-related, since most universities speeded up People Soft implementations because the old systems were not compliant. There are many reports of People Soft problems at various universities.

-- Bud Hamilton (budham@hotmail.com), February 02, 2000.

Great job, Martin! I'm catching up on reading posts here...

PeopleSoft,Inc states on their website that they have 2500 customers worldwide, ranging from universities to manufacturers to the US Defense Department.

From PeopleSoft's website:

~snip~.....There are, however, a number of dependencies that we rely upon when certifying operating system software - we require support from the many 3rd party software vendors we embed in our applications. Unfortunately such support is not always timely.

This has been the case for Windows 98. Not all of the software products that we require on our client have been certified by their respective vendors. Nonetheless, we have conducted our Windows 98 certification tests with software that the vendors will not state as supporting Windows 98. Despite the lack of vendor approved support, Windows 98 passed our certification tests. What this means to you, the user, is that we believe that Windows 98 clients will function as specified in our documentation. If problems are discovered, we will attempt to remedy them. The only area we do not have coverage is if a problem arises that relates to an unsupported 3rd party product. In that case, it may not be possible to get 3rd party vendor support for that product on Windows 98.

In summary, we feel confident that Windows 98 will perform as expected, and we will do everything we can to support it. The user is still at some risk using it due to the lack of support for certain 3rd party products. As Windows 98 supported versions of those 3rd party products become available, we will proceed in certifying them with our software whenever possible.

Windows 98 will be supported for PT 7.05

The list of known, unsupported 3rd party software is as follows: - Crystal Reports 6.0.1.135 - MicroFocus Netexpress 2 - Essbase 5 - Informix I-Connect 7.23 TC2 - Oracle SQL*Net 2.3x - SQR 4.3.2 (for Sybase, Oracle, Informix platforms)

~snip~

http://checkers.peoplesoft.com/psdb.nsf/5127eab217ab83ab082565fb0 0007cb6/f265a70f22eb03118825685d00717872?OpenDocument&ExpandSection=- 2,2

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), February 08, 2000.