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TECHNICAL ISSUES SPREAD ACROSS CAMPUS
BY TONY PELLICO
Across Clackamas Community College,
students and teachers are most likely
staring at a loading screen on their
computers right now.
Currently, the college is a mix of wired
and wireless networks, but both seem to
be causing students and staff problems.
Students who bring their own phones
and computers connect to the campus’
Wi-Fi, whereas college owned equipment
is a mix of wired or wifeless.
“ I t takes us 10 minutes
to shutdown a computer
and 10 minutes to boot
i t up. That’s 20 minutes
ofclasstime.”
-Amanda Coffey
Dave Gates, head of Inform ation
Technology at CCC, describes W i-Fi
as having two main components: the
controller, which acts 4as the main
hub for W i-Fi connection, and several
smaller hubs, known as access points.
Technologicaldevices connect to the
access points, which connect to the
controller.
Though some of the access points were
updated, many of the older ones remain.
The older access points are weighed
down, and though it may appear like
your device is connected to the internet,
it’s n ot
Therefore, although you are connected
to the access point, you aren’t necessarily
connected to the internet. “ Depending on
where you are on the campus, you could
be talking to the older or newer system,”
Gates said, regarding the current access
points.
Kaleb Posey, a computer science
6 Clackamas Print MARCH 2,2016 thedackamasprintcom
student, said, “ It’ s good. At times it
seems like hit or riiiss. It depends on
the building too. Some buildings are
better than others. They have better
infrastructure or maybe newer technology
is put in, or it’ s just maybe less used. But
overall it’s pretty decent for being free
access for all of us around here.”
In March the IT department is replacing
some of the old controllers with the new,
faster Cisco 55-20. The new system will
contain a backup controller for each main
controller.
“ If one controller fails, the other one
picks it up,” said Gates.
In addition to the controllers, the
campus is also planning on upgrading
the access points, which will further aid
internet connection. “ In the summer
we are going to replace all of the access
points with the Cisco 3800 Wave 2, which
will be faster. We’ll have about 20 access
points ip the entire system, ” said Gates.
The combination of both the new
controllers and the new access points
will remove many of the dead-zones on
campus, and many more access points
will be added, even outside.
Wi-Fi isn’t the only technical problem
at CCC. Computers are slow taboot up
and shut down. Amanda Coffey, an
English instructor, said, “ It takes us 10
minutes to shutdown a computer and 10
minutes to boot it up. That’s 20 minutes
of class tim e.”
For shorter classes, that is almost a
fourth of class time wasted. However,
this may not be due to faulty network
connections, but rather dated equipment.
Students in one of Coffey’s film classes
prepared visual projects worth 15 percent
of their grade, which required access to
the campus network.
“ It was a film class, and the students
were presenting theoretical analyses of
a minimum of two scenes,” Coffey said.
Because of the computer problems,
Coffey’s students couldn’t show the film
clips and instead had to explain the visual
context of their video clips because the
Internet websites would either remain
buffering, or fail to load at all.
If the computers they were using were
connected to Wi-Fi, they could have been
in a idead-zone or connected to a weak
signal. If the computer was connected to
the campus network, it could have been
buffering because of traffic.
“ The students were using mostly
Google presentations with links to short
clips on YouTube — or they were toggling
between a slide presentation and a DVD.
These seem like basic functions and it
surprises me that these simple tasks
would bring a desktop to its knees,”
Coffey said.
Ryan Davis, an English and writing
instructor, noted projector issues being
the most prominent in his classes.
“ Projectors come and they go and they
work for a little while, then they don’t
work. Often times it’s a bad bulb, or bad
connection, but it seems to be happening
a lot more this term than other terms.
Matthew Warren, an English instructor,
noted that, “ Aside from W i-F i not
working in the back corner of our office
hall in Roger Rook, especially in the
mornings for some reason, I and others
have experienced projectors going out
(“ no signal” messages) or simply not
working in multiple rooms and buildings,
including the Training Center, Randall
and Barlow classrooms.”
There are many variables that could fci
affect the access point from effectively
sending a signal. For example, access
points are designed to send signals in
certain directions and if you’re in the
opposite direction or too far away from
the access point, your signal could be
weakened. This could be the cause of
the slow connections these students and
instructors are experiencing.
THE CLACKAMAS PRINT
USED A W I-FI SPEED
TESTING APP CALLED
“ SPEEDTEST” TO TEST
INTERNET STRENGTH
IN EACH BUILDING ON
CAMPUS. ALTHOUGH YOUR
DEVICE MAY SEEM LIKE IT
HAS A GOOD CONNECTION,
IT MIGHT NOT MATTER IF A
TOT OF PEOPLE ARE TRYING
TO ACCESS IT. THIS TEST RAN
BETWEEN 1P.M. AND 2 P.M.
ON FEBRUARY 29.
Clackamas Print MARCH 2,2016 thkiackamasprint.com 7