College of the Desert’s website and phone systems were largely restored Tuesday following an extended computer network disruption that blocked student and staff access to various online services.
The college set up a temporary website allowing students to access alternative resources and student services that were left unavailable due to the outage that began July 4. But the bulk of the main website was restored Tuesday.
College officials expect to have Self-Service features up by the end of the week so students can register/drop classes, access records and more from their personal devices. COD’s final summer session begins Monday, so students were advised to contact the college to register for their classes.
It was unclear what caused the outage, but the college’s Information Technology staff worked with an outside firm to help repair the disruption and called law enforcement to investigate the issue.
“As we were working with our IT, as well as a third party, it was necessary to bring in law enforcement,” Robles told City News Service. “It’s typical for situations like this, for our computer network outage.”
College officials said they will prioritize the restoration of services most used by students as part of the college’s tiered service recovery plan. Internet service on all of COD’s campuses was restored.
“Even students who do online courses still like to come to the library and utilize the internet so they can study,” COD spokesman Nicholas Robles told City News Service.
The Colleague UI Portal was also restored, allowing access for staff to help students register for or drop classes, process transcripts and access student records, but Robles told CNS they’re still working to restore access for students’ 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 alert system as information becomes available, officials said.