College of the Desert’s website and phone systems were largely restored on Tuesday following an extended computer network outage that blocked student and staff access to various online services.
The college has set up a temporary website for students to access alternative resources and student services that were unavailable due to the outage that began on July 4. But most of the main website was restored on Tuesday.
College officials expect self-service features to be available by the end of the week so students can enroll/drop classes, access records and more from their devices. personal. COD’s final summer session begins on Monday, so students have been advised to contact the college to register for their courses.
The cause of the outage was unclear, but college information technology staff worked with an outside company to help fix the disruption and called law enforcement to investigate the issue.
“Because we were working with our IT, as well as a third party, it was necessary to involve law enforcement,” Robles told City News Service. “That’s typical for situations like this, for our computer network outage.”
College officials said they will prioritize restoring services most used by students as part of the college’s tiered service restoration plan. Internet service at all COD campuses has been restored.
“Even students who take online classes still enjoy coming to the library and using the internet so they can study,” COD spokesman Nicholas Robles told City News Service.
The Colleague UI portal has also been restored, allowing staff access to help students enroll in or drop out of classes, process transcripts and access student records, but Robles told CNS that were still working to restore access to student portals.
Robles said classes were not canceled or impacted and students will not be dropped due to non-payment of fees during the outage.
Faculty, students and staff will receive regular updates through COD’s text message alert system as information becomes available, officials said.
