The Daily Tar Heel
Printing news. Raising hell. Since 1893.
Thursday, March 28, 2024 Newsletters Latest print issue

We keep you informed.

Help us keep going. Donate Today.
The Daily Tar Heel

Online housing sign-up delayed

Problems not expected again

sam Clayton-Luce woke up early Tuesday planning to pick out his ideal room in Alderman Residence Hall for next year.

But problems with the University’s Onyen authentication caused a delay in the launch of the Office of Housing and Residential Education’s Web site, which allowed students returning to on-campus housing to select rooms within their current buildings.

Housing officials said prior registration dates went without a hitch, and they anticipate future dates to go smoothly as well.

Important dates


March 3: In-person suite event. One representative for a group of students can visit SASB and choose from available suites.
March 15: Current seniors/juniors pick a room anywhere on campus through the online system.
March 22: Current sophomores pick a room anywhere on campus through the online system. March 29 Current freshmen pick rooms anywhere on campus through the online system.
For more information: housing.unc.edu

The issues weren’t specific to Tuesday’s housing registration but were based in the Onyen authentication system. Information Technology Services officials said they did not know if other resources­ accessible by Onyen — such as Blackboard or UNC Webmail — were affected.

The issue was detected by a routine check performed by the ITS help desk every Tuesday and Saturday. Because Information Technology Services detected the problem at about 7 a.m., the problem was fixed minutes after the intended registration time. Registration was moved back to 10 a.m. to avoid further hassle.

Some students said the delay left them unable to register when the site opened because they were in class or had other obligations.

Clayton-Luce accessed the site at 10:45 a.m., after his class got out, and said he was disappointed to find that there were not many options available.

“I’m definitely happy with what I ended up with, but I think I may have had a few more options had I been able to get on earlier,” he said.

The system allowed students to select any room for next year within the same residence hall as a way to allow students who feel connected to their halls to have preference in room choice before the general campus population.

“In the past, the process basically had two steps,” said Rick Bradley, assistant director of Housing and Residential Education. “One is you could keep your same room, and the other was you could move anywhere else on campus. Now we’ve added a middle step.”

Of the roughly 800 students who logged on to the site Tuesday, 574 selected rooms.

Bradley said they received few reports of problems, which he thought was a good sign of the system’s effectiveness.

 

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.

To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.

Special Print Edition
The Daily Tar Heel's Collaborative Mental Health Edition