The only message Ohio University students and faculty received yesterday from their OAK e-mail accounts was check your username and password.
No one could check their OAK e-mails, log onto Blackboard, search on the Web site's eDirectory, look at the Information Technology section of the site or use OU's wireless network yesterday, said Sean O'Malley, public relations manager for Communication Network Services.
Kind of a general rule is if it requires you to use your Oak ID and password to get into it
it's probably not going to work O'Malley said.
The problem, which started a little before 8 yesterday morning, was in the disk array, which stores data such as Oak e-mail files, Blackboard and eDirectory information, said Tom Reid, director for CNS.
The main OU Web site and search function were still working, Reid said. Databases on the library Web site also were not affected, O'Malley said.
The disk array is manufactured by Hewlett-Packard, which sent one engineer to help the four OU staff members already working to fix it, Reid said. Also, four engineers from HP in Colorado remotely communicated with OU.
But workers were not sure whether a software or hardware problem affected the disk array, Reid said. If it was a software problem, the program needs fixed, but if it is a hardware problem, OU might need new parts.
We have 30 parts being emergency shipped here at 8 9 and 10 p.m.
Reid said last night. He also said people worked all through the night to try to fix the problem.
Reid was not sure when the problem would be fixed as of press time, but he said, Our optimistic scenario right now is midnight.
He said CNS received certainly hundreds of calls yesterday.
OU senior Whitney Fromholtz did not call, but said she was frustrated that she could not use her e-mail.
I was expecting to send out a lot of e-mails to tell professor friends not to come to my banquet because I can't go now
Fromholtz said. I'm also working on internship stuff
so if I got an e-mail from someone today
I'm out of it; I'm a day behind
you know?
Another OU student, sophomore Jessica Archer, said she only tried to check her e-mail once, but then she heard about the problem.
I don't know what to do with myself without e-mail
she said.
Other students complained that they either needed e-mail or Blackboard for assignments due yesterday or today, but thought their professors would understand.
Although there is no cost to OU from Hewlett Packard -the parts being sent and engineer assistance is part of the service contract -Reid said that the problem yesterday reveals how reliant people are on technology.
The unfortunate cost is a loss of productivity to the university
and it's amazing how dependent we all are. All of these various electronic tools have become our lifeblood
Reid said. After we've recovered from this outage
