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Volume 52, Issue 113 | monday, april 16, 2018 | ndsmcobserver.com
ND returns to DART registration Office of the Registrar shuts down NOVO system for duration of spring semester By NATALIE WEBER News Editor
After experiencing delays and slowness during course registration last semester, the Office of the Registrar has decided to return to DART registration and take down the NOVO system for the duration of this semester’s registration period. Both DART and NOVO were designed by the company Ellucian Banner, University registrar Chuck Hurley said. When NOVO was released in 2015, the Office of the Registrar began to transition to the system, and up until last semester, had not seen significant issues with the program, Hurley said. “In November, we had a very odd experience which was that senior registration went well,” he
As a result, the Office of the Registrar and the Office of Information Technologies (OIT) decided to transfer to the DART system, Chris Corrente, OIT manager of student solutions, said. “Over the past several weeks, the OIT conducted multiple load tests of NOVO and DART, and the results demonstrated that DART performed better under heavy load,” Corrente said. “We thus decided, in collaboration with the Registrar’s Office, to disable NOVO and solely rely on DART for the heavy registration cycle.” Still, Corrente said, the Office of the Registrar and OIT hope to return to NOVO after resolving issues in the system. “Despite the fact that we are switching back to DART for this registration period, the OIT and the Registrar’s Office will
said. “Then junior registration went and we saw a great deal of slowness in the system — 30 second response times, things like that. Sometimes even slower than that. Then sophomores registered and things went well. Then first year students registered and we saw the slowness come back again.” To address the issue, the University reported the issues to Ellucian Banner and began to speak with other colleges using the same software. “They were reporting the exact same error message that we saw on the back end, which is a database deadlocking error and so we found that a great concern,” Hurley said. “One of them contacted us just a little bit over a week ago and said they were still seeing it.”
SGA hosts inaugural 5k to benefit Holy Cross sisters By MAEVE FILBIN News Writer
ANN CURTIS | The Observer
Saint Mary’s students participate in ‘Sister Sprint,’ an augural run and walk that raised money for the Sisters of the Holy Cross.
News Writer
The annual Notre Dame Student Peace Conference, a Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies sponsored event, took place Friday and Saturday at the Hesburgh Center to encourage students to have
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continue to work with Ellucian to address the performance issues, as our goal is to make the NOVO service available again during future heavy registration cycles,” he said. “We also will be turning the NOVO system back online once we get through the heavy registration period over the next week.” The times for registration have also expanded, Hurley said, to further prevent slowness. Whereas students previously registered between 6:45 a.m. and 8 a.m., they will now register between 6:30 a.m. and 8:20 a.m. with 10 minutes between each registration wave. “It’s the same amount of students in each class,” Hurley said. “We’re just stretching it out a little bit. The vendor said — it’s like
Junior Arike Ogunbowale, a guard on Notre Dame’s women’s basketball team, will compete on the 26th season of ABC’s dance competition show “Dancing with the Stars,” ABC announced Friday. Ogunbowale received national attention after securing the women’s basketball program’s first national championship since 2001 with two game-winning buzzer-beaters in the women’s NCAA basketball
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Observer Staff Report
Students serve community at ‘Back the Bend’
Saint Mary’s Student Government Association (SGA) hosted its first ever ‘Sister Sprint,’ a 5k run and walk, on Saturday as a fundraising event to benefit the Sisters of the Holy Cross. see SPRINT PAGE 4
Kroc Institute promotes peace-building initiatives By NICOLE SIMON
Irish athlete set for DWTS
discussions about peacebuilding and social justice. The conference was organized by senior co-chairs Elizabeth Hascher and Erin Prestage, who said they have been planning the event since September. “Something that’s hard when you plan any thing this big is that you have
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to rely on other people,” Hascher said. “There were some bumps along the way, but ultimately we had so much help from our professors, our adv isors [and] the other students on the committee who showed up early and stayed after we told see PEACE PAGE 4
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Photo Courtesy of Sully O’Hara
Students from Keough Hall participate in the ‘Mulch Madness’ project in South Bend during the ninth-annual ‘Back the Bend.’ By ANDREW CAMERON News Writer
Braving the cold and rain, students from the tri-campus community and other members of South Bend gathered Saturday to help with a variety of community service projects for the ninth annual “Back the Bend.” The event was a collaboration
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between the South Bend community, local universities and organizations — Notre Dame Student Government, St. Mary’s College, Holy Cross College and Indiana University South Bend’s Student Government Association — and ten other local organizations. As the student government see COMMUNITY PAGE 3
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