The Martlet

The electronic infrastructure at UVic will be seeing some big changes, thanks to the $20-million Project Nova.

Project Nova is designed to revamp how UVic students and faculty access online resources by eliminating the existing stand-alone systems and replacing them with a collection of integrated systems. The upgrades are supposed to bring UVic to the top of the list of unified digital campuses, said the project website.

Mark Roman, chief information officer for Computing and Systems Services, said students will be able to use a new registration system starting on March 25 to sign up for summer courses. He said that newmodules dealing with degree audits and convocation are coming soon.

Nova will be a single portal connecting the user to other online services, according to the project website. SunGard SCT is the supplier of the administrative software.

“When we go online with the components of the system, we will have to shut the [UVic] server down,” said Roman. He stressed that the only server shutdowns that should be a concern to the UVic community are unplanned ones.

Some students have complained that the UVic server bounces their e-mails, and that they have to send the same message twice in order to get it through. Roman noted this as a concern and said that UVic students having problems with their e-mail should take it up with the computer help desk.

There is also a new e-mail system in the works, using a Microsoft Exchange-based product.

“There will be more reliability than with Webmail,” he said. “We’re also developing a disaster recovery system to act as a backup.”

There will be a chance to provide feedback and suggestions on computing services on March 28 at 1 p.m. in Clearihue C030.