Kim Gunhong 
funnychild@korea.ac.kr
Most university students early in their semester are busy drafting blueprints in preparation for a better life. Unlike other people making simple New Year resolutions, university students have to make specific plans regarding the courses they will take. Students in Korea University (KU) are no exception. However, a number of KU students have expressed dissatisfaction with KU’s Course Registration System for several reasons, especially the system‘s time lag.
On February 28, many freshmen completely lapsed into chaos because of the Course Registration System in KU. This system allows the students to select about five to seven classes posted on the KU portal. Students then enter the courses’ unit code and number of course in the blank. After these procedures, they click ‘confirm’ to register for the selected courses. Lastly, they have to check whether they have succeeded in registering for the courses selected, as some of them are likely to have been “bounced off,” an expression used by students to describe the failed attempts to register for courses. The Course Registration System of KU has always been a chronic source of trouble for students owing to several pervasive problems. Most complaints focus on its time lag of the system itself.
“It was worse than terrible.” Park Byung Hoon (’08, Political Science and Economics) said. “As a freshman in KU, it was the first time for me to use the Course Registration System. From what I heard, the year 2008 has hit bottom compared to previous years. Also, they confirmed what I experienced. Though course registration was supposed to begin at 5:30, we were not even close to accessing the site until 6:30. A lot of students were panicking, since it was their first time to try the registration system.” Mr. Park continued, “Not only was it annoying, but it drove most students mad at the abortive registration system.” Mr. Park hoped that the KU portal, at least, should be easily accessible so that absurd situations like this will not happen in following years. Elaborating on freshmen complaints, many seniors have asserted that this present situation concerning the registration system has been an inveterate problem. “The problem of the long time lag in the Course Registration System existed when I was a freshman. It is just being exacerbated over time,” Nam Doek Hyun (’06, Public Administration) opined. Mr. Nam suggested two fundamental reasons for the current difficulties which students have undergone. “Above all, the capacity of the Internet server is not large enough to accommodate the 20,000 students at KU. To resolve this problem, KU should simply enlarge the server itself to eradicate this problem. However, a more fundamental reason lies in the changing role of a university in society, from my perspective. That is to say, a university no longer exists solely as an ivory tower in pursuit of knowledge but as a vocational school, whether one likes it or not. Accordingly, an enormous number of students are prone to concentrate on a limited number of popular courses that are helpful for employment in the future.” However, Mr. Nam pointed his finger at KU as fully responsible for the current morass. “KU has to understand how troublesome the current Course Registration System is to all students. As I know, KU refrains from spending to enlarge the internet server asthe persons concerned regard the problem as trivial. They should remember that KU has accumulated more than 16 billion won in reserve funds. Of course, in order to solve this problem at the source, KU must strive to increase the number of professors and classes, not just enlarge the capacity of the internet server.” He also expressed his willingness to participate in any effort to resolve this problem.
Departments working on the Course Registration System, however, have their own explanations as well. “The registration system’s internet server has already been upgraded this year. Our team has been trying to fix this problem, yet it is inevitable to some extent. Because of unbelievably popular courses limiting the number of students registered, there is not much we can do to terminate the problem completely. A tremendous number of KU students access the Internet site simultaneously, which is the main factor for the time lag.” Kim Chang Hwan of the Office of Academic Affairs said. Since they said that systematic issues are the domain of the Office of Information Technology and Services, the Granite Tower interviewed the department. The office also laid its finger on courses restricting the number of students. “There has always been the intent to increase the capacity of the Internet server so as to facilitate course registration. Nevertheless, disagreement exists whether it is economically sensible or not because course registration is only conducted several times a year. Furthermore, such expenditure is not likely to result in any conspicuous system improvement.” In response to complaints from many students, Kim Woo Reon, principally in charge of the system in the Office of Information Technology and Services, said that the Office is working on the problem of time lag. “In order to overcome this snag, our team has substituted a new data base (DB) server for the problematic one this year. At the same time, we have also implemented a web accelerator, which can accelerate the speed of the internet server. Although our team has put our effort in solving this issue, we remain pessimistic. Forget the fact that expenditure on super computers is waste expenditure considering the limited number of course registrations per year, such expenditure would not produce the results anticipated by many students.” In short, Mr. Kim also considered the problem inevitable.
Strangely, other universities do not seem to have this huge annoyance. “The speed of the internet server during course registration has never faltered since I entered this school,” Sim Kyu Yeong (’07, College of Medicine) in Ulsan University said. “Of course, students in my university have difficulty in registering for popular courses. However, we can at least check whether our registration is successful or not immediately after we click the ‘confirm’ button, unlike KU.” Mr. Sim continued, “Moreover, the university discourages students from taking more than two courses in one field so that not too many students compete for popular classes. I think that my university is at least trying to consider student needs compared to KU.” He also emphasized that problems of course registration system should be solve as soon as possible, as registration is crucial for students.
출처 : 고려대학교 고파스 2024-04-29 17:01:57:
