The ANGEL system used at Sinclair Community College is multi-faceted and complicated, making problems hard to diagnose and fix, according to Mike Burns, director of Research, Analytics and Systems Development.
“There are so many pieces to the ANGEL puzzle,” Burns said.
Sinclair doesn’t control every piece of the puzzle, either. Some, including physical hardware, databases and software, are at Sinclair’s disposal. However, user setups, like their Internet service provider (ISP), operating system and browser also factor in, according to Burns.
“Some things are beyond our control,” Burns said. “Our goal is a seamless user experience. It’s obtainable, it just takes time.”
Before any issue can be diagnosed or fixed, though, the problem must be reported.
Burns said that students who encounter any issue with ANGEL should call 512-HELP or visit hdto.sinclair.edu to report an issue with the Help Desk.
“Don’t assume we already know,” Burns said.
Anyone reporting a problem should provide as much as information as possible to assist the Help Desk in finding a solution. Burns said that most issues are “user-instruction.”
“A large percentage of the Help Desk tickets are issues with ISP or the browser,” Burns said.
Compared to last quarter, the amount of Help Desk tickets was down, according to Russ Little, manager of Web Systems. He also said there were less tickets of a severe nature.
Burns said that the start of winter quarter was “good.” He said he measures that by the number of Help Desk tickets received. He said he gets about 10-15 a day and he reviews all of them.
Overall ANGEL has had few “non-maintenance” outages during winter quarter, according to Burns. One slowdown did occur the first Tuesday of the quarter, from about 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. Burns said they diagnosed the problem and have managed it since.
All outages due to routine maintenance are posted in advance inside ANGEL.
Because fixing issues can be challenging, though. Sinclair attempts to implement new systems in down periods, often during the breaks between quarters. Fixing problems during the quarter would be like “changing a muffler while going down the highway,” according to Little.
“I’d love for it to be perfect, I strive for it,” Little said. “All the pieces are constantly changing.”
Burns said that Sinclair policy is to constantly update the technology. That often means more capacity and faster processing, according to Little.
The stress on ANGEL is growing each quarter, but not only because of increasing enrollment. Burns said that Distance Learning classes are growing every quarter, and more instructors who are not teaching a Distance Learning class are using ANGEL to “augment” their teaching.
One way Sinclair tries to prepare for issues is by the use of monitoring systems. Burns defined monitoring as “using software to poll the health of the system.” The monitoring systems test the speed and reliability of ANGEL.
“It’s the check engine light,” Karl Konsdorf, manager of Research, Analytics and Reporting, said.
The ongoing step is to monitor and respond,” Burns said.