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Editorial: CCLE needs improvements to prevent system shutdowns that harm students

By Editorial Board

Oct. 29, 2020 3:59 p.m.

UCLA was the birthplace of the internet 50 years ago.

Last weekend, it was where students’ weekend study plans went to die.

On Sunday – the start of midterm season for many students – the UCLA Common Collaboration and Learning Environment experienced an hours-long outage that rendered many essential services inaccessible. Students took to various social media sites to complain, and alternative forum discussion platforms such as Piazza and Campuswire became ground zero for sharing notes and uploads in CCLE’s absence.

There’s no question about it: CCLE is the lifeblood of Bruins’ education. And during the age of remote learning, it’s one of the only tools they have to submit assignments, take quizzes and successfully learn course material. Classes rely on online modes of communication more than ever. Students from various time zones are now forced to rely on CCLE during hours previously reserved for last-minute cramming sessions.

With these things in mind, unplanned outages are nothing short of unacceptable. The lack of campus-wide communication throughout and following the ordeal ultimately put salt in the wound, furthering already-stressed students’ confusion and frustration.

To its credit, the CCLE has its own Twitter account that promptly announced the technical glitch. But with a little more than 500 followers, it’s hard to imagine the message reached many students at all. The only other source of communication was the UCLA IT Services website that provided little other than an acknowledgment of the ongoing issues.

UCLA needs a more advanced and robust online system that can cope with increased demand from students and instructors alike – especially when a definitive end to remote learning is nowhere in sight. Having CCLE fail midday on the eve of a midterms-ridden week for many is one thing, but with students accessing it at all hours of the day while spread across the globe, UCLA should commit to upgrading its systems to support unfettered, 24-hour access.

An excerpt from UCLA’s Business Transformation Office website state that “many of UCLA’s information technology systems date back to the 1980s, when mainframe computers were the norm.” Clearly, some modernization – and perhaps improved redundancy measures – are required to prevent a single storage-related glitch from taking down an entire network. Whatever the case, an accessible learning management system is the bare minimum required for Zoom university.

Unexpected glitches are an inevitable reality of a learning system dominated by technology. But UCLA would do well to communicate lapses with the community.

And perhaps more importantly, bring the system into the 21st century.

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