S.C.O.R.E., to the happiness of many late night campus computer users, was unexplainably made available for use during normally restricted hours of operation over the course of winter break.

The Student-Centered Online Record Environment normally operates Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to midnight, and weekends noon to midnight. For a few days within the recent break however many students claimed that they were able to use S.C.O.R.E from midnight to 7 a.m.

“There is a process within the web to prevent access to the S.C.O.R.E. login after midnight and prior to the 7 a.m. or noon up time. We are researching whether there was a problem that allowed students access after midnight. But I could not confirm this at this time,” said Theresa Fuller, an associate registrar.

Maureen Breed, the director of registration services and operations, could not explain why S.C.O.R.E. did not deny access between midnight and 7 a.m.

“I wasn’t aware that this had happened. The system normally becomes unavailable because of system maintenance, that’s when it has its downtime,” she said.

Breed explained that the system downtime was much longer when S.C.O.R.E. became web-based in 1999, and today operation has shortened to the 17 hours a day during the week and 12 on weekends. The staff members who created the Internet service researched when students accessed it most often and least often by monitoring activity through logs that record the numbers of users at any given time. The services downtime was then scheduled for when students were least likely to be using it.

“We looked very carefully at usage time, and usage time usually drops way down after dinner time. The later in the evening it gets, the less the numbers,” Breed said.

From the hours of midnight to 7 a.m. were the most sensible time for the system to be down, as a small number of students would be using the service between those times, she added.

“Twelve to 7 seems practical. There are still enough hours available in the rest of the day that you can check another time,” Breed said.

Some students feel that S.C.O.R.E. would be much more convenient if it were available for 24 hours.

“It’d be more useful if it were available 24 hours. There are times I want to check my schedule later than 12,” said Matthew Peterson, a junior bioengineering major.

Breed is not sure as to whether the service will ever run continuously with no downtime.

“It’s not something we’ve been talking about. It might come at a time when there may be other ways of providing access in the future,” Breed said.

As of now though, Peterson says the downtime is just a small price to pay.

“It’s better than spending three hours standing in line to register,” Peterson said.

Published on January 14, 2003 at 12:00 pm