It’s the fourth week of school, and this week’s Soundoff has found some students are still having difficulty accessing ACES.
According to www.aces.alamo.edu, the site is described as a “secure portal that provides students, staff and faculty with access to various applications.”
Guaranteed access to all applications hasn’t always been the case since the semester began Aug. 26.
The site had to be restarted the first day of classes because of high traffic slowing down the Banner Service System.
The system also faced an unrelated cyber-attack, forcing a manual shutdown of the service. At 4:30 p.m. of the same day, the system was restored.
However, the problems didn’t end there.
Many students still experience difficulty with ACES. Issues include not being able to log into the site. Some students who can log in cannot get into email because the system does not recognize the correct password.
Students need to log in to ACES to turn in homework, but the unreliable server has made turning in assignments difficult.
An adviser can’t have instructional materials on outside networks, which means students can’t access files or turn in homework to other locations if ACES is down.
The college recognizes only ACES email as official correspondence.
Without a back-up in place, students are at the mercy of the server. Online students are completely dependent on ACES; all their assignments are online.
Students should not have to worry about accessing or completing assignments because the system is down.
The district should allow teachers to use an alternate site or email as back-up. ACES is a portal that helps students in multiple ways, but students should not have to worry about being able to access the site.
