Column: The real source of all misery

T he first thing an incoming freshman learns about UNC is that ConnectCarolina sucks: drop-down menus, 130 or more results cannot be displayed, random loading times and so on.

I like to blame The Man for this. Those out-of-touch administrators. They just don’t care. Yes, we have to use ConnectCarolina, even though there are a million other, better interfaces that I just Googled. Stuffy bureaucrats.

Really, it’s just more complicated than that.

First, ConnectCarolina is not just for grades. It’s a very big database. Within ConnectCarolina are thousands of billing records, social security numbers and a trove of Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act-protected data. Under that rusty car exterior, it’s filled with financial and payroll information for every member of the UNC staff, faculty, administration and student body.

Secondly, there are issues of motivation. There are 877 people at UNC in information technology positions; of those, about 50 are actively working on different components of ConnectCarolina.

But they didn’t create it, and having a bunch of people tinker with a very complex code base manufactured by an outside company (more on that later) carries deeper risks. While a Silicon Valley-based tech company ought to have user experience as one of its top priorities, Information Technology Services’ top priority is to not be on the front page of The New York Times for a student data leak.

And, since the company behind ConnectCarolina is planning on rolling out a new user interface in 2015-16 anyway, why would they bother?

Generally, technology in a governmental institution is not centrally controlled. In a company, you have executives that control everything. Or something like that. I hope.

UNC doesn’t have that kind of central nervous system. The 877 IT people include everyone from the chief information officer to the webmaster for the General Alumni Association to the ResNet guys.

Different parties want to control their own technology, so the CIO of a university cannot just tell the webmaster of the GAA what to do because he’s not really his boss.

Then there is the fact that most of UNC’s technology was created by outside companies. Email? Microsoft. Class websites? Sakai. ConnectCarolina? Oracle. This is necessary when you have a thousand different needs to fill across a huge institution like UNC. Building every one of our fundamental resources in-house invites in a whole new trove of problems.

But, naturally, those companies have more control and understanding of their own product than a particular member of ITS does. And if a company does not want to update it ­— despite our collective frustration?

Well, ITS can’t really do anything with a set contract and transitioning to another vendor is a disorganized mess in itself.

So, yeah. It’s pretty much The Man.