‘Passport’ problems hold back Peralta students

Peralta's "Passport" computer system was unavailable for students and teachers for the first several days of the Spring 2011 semester, leaving students unable to modify their schedules, and instructors unable to modify their rosters, or even take roll.

Multiple times over the past calendar year malfunctions by the PeopleSoft/Oracle software left Peralta in the dark. In the middle of last semester employees throughout the district, including at the Laney Tower, had their e-mail inboxes erased.

Beginning the semester with an information technology blackout left many instructors angry and frustrated, and several expressed frustration in the first days of class.

Classes at Peralta, which, in many cases, have been pushed beyond capacity by district budget cuts, were further impacted by the shutdown of the Passport system. District Academic President KarolynVan Putten noted at the Feb. 1 board meeting, "We have had a really rough start to the semester."

"Here we go again, " said Berkeley City College Political Science Professor Matthew Freeman. "It's frustrating for staff and faculty; we couldn't access our e-mails, which students use as their primary mode of contact with instructors.

"I had a student in an 8 a.m. class coming back from Iran who contacted me to make sure he wouldn't be dropped for missing the first day, I never received his e-mail," Freeman said.

While Freeman said he does not automatically drop students who miss the first day of class, many other instructors do.

"I stand here tonight absolutely horrified for any new student who has to pursue an education at Laney," said Michelle Nicole, an ambassador at the Laney Welcome Center.

She saw over 300 students per day last week, who were confused, frustrated, and angry looking for any reason to give up and go home. Last week was completely unfair," Nicole said in a statement at the Feb. 1 board meeting, "Students didn't need any added pressure with the passport system not working, and as a student ambassador, I felt as if my hands were tied."

For a faculty already nervous about how to implement new enrollment procedures such as wait-lists and add codes correctly, the software issues left them hamstrung.

But while faculty had their jobs made more difficult, Freeman said other staff could be even more adversely affected. "I can't imagine how they feel," he said.

Administrative staff use Passport to input calendar information and because so much information is stored in the "cloud"—stored on remote servers and downloaded to individual computers—when the system is down, e-mail and calendar schedules become unavailable.

Last semester," Freeman said, "my understanding is that when the server collapsed, all of the e-mails in inboxes were gone, and staff couldn't access calendars for a week.

My question is: Does [the district] have the capacity to handle the software? Clearly the answer last semester was: maybe not."

When asked if the district had communicated with staff about the shutdown, Freeman responded that everybody was in the dark starting Jan. 24 and didn't know what was going on until the next morning. District staff was simply told Passport was down.

He was contemplating setting up another e-mail because Peralta e-mail has been unreliable, but decided to give it another shot. "I got burned by that decision," said Freeman.