MyUCLA technical troubles plague many students
By Colleen Honigsberg
Jan. 27, 2004 9:00 p.m.
Many students have been experiencing difficulties with MyUCLA
““ the campus Web site where students can find everything from
their grades to a personalized message from their doctor ““ in
the past few weeks.
Some students reported no problems with the Web site, but others
said they were unable to access their Webmail accounts from MyUCLA
or to even log on to the Web site itself.
Eric Splaver, director of College Information Services, said he
is aware of problems accessing Webmail from within MyUCLA, but
that system logs reveal no problems from the side of the server
regarding logging on to MyUCLA.
He said the authentication system used by MyUCLA is shared
campuswide by nearly 100 different Web sites and that no reports of
problems with the system have been filed.
As for the problems accessing Webmail from MyUCLA, Splaver said
the problems were due to a high volume of traffic.
“We believe the problems were related to the
larger-than-expected number of Webmail users, and we have made
modifications which we think will fix the problem,” Splaver
said. “If not, we’ll keep trying.”
Daniela Chavez, a fourth-year history and Chicano/a studies
student, said her difficulties with MyUCLA prevented her from
turning in an assignment on time.
“For my history class, I had to make a post on the
discussion board, but I didn’t do it because I wasn’t
able to log on to MyUCLA,” Chavez said.
“I can’t be the only one with this problem,”
she said. “They should make it a priority to fix
MyUCLA.”
Cameron Carling, a fourth-year communication studies student,
said he hopes the Web site is fixed because he has been
inconvenienced by his inability to access his e-mail through MyUCLA
at least once a day for the past two months.
“You always have an internal server error. Always. Why do
they even have e-mail on there if it doesn’t work?” he
said.
He added that last week he was counting on an e-mail from an
internship but was unable to access his account from either MyUCLA
or Bruinwalk.com ““ which also provides access to UCLA e-mail
““ for more than three consecutive days.
Though problems with the Web site are frequent for some, other
students have had no complaints.
Chris Leveque, a fourth-year political science student, is one
MyUCLA user who has not experienced difficulties with the Web
site.
“I logged on yesterday, and it went fine,” Levenque
said. “I haven’t had any problems in all my four
years.”
If other servers are not working, Eddie Urenda, manager for the
Bruin Online help desk, recommends that students access their UCLA
e-mail through the Bruin OnLine interface ““ on which the
e-mail interfaces for MyUCLA and Bruinwalk.com are based ““
available at mail.ucla.edu.
Some students, like Carling, said they were not aware of the BOL
Web address.
The difficulties with MyUCLA cause some students to avoid the
Web site as much as possible.
“It usually doesn’t work, so I don’t use
it,” said Dabney Lee, a fourth-year communication studies
student.
A substantial portion of the Web site’s users, however, do
not share Lee’s sentiments.
Splaver noted that MyUCLA has between 18,000 and 20,000 unique
users daily. He said the Webmail component alone has 10,000 unique
users daily, adding that the unique user counts represent the
number of different users having one or more sessions each day.
