On August 12, the Fall semester course registration for GIST took place. During this period, however, many students experienced difficulties when accessing the server. Consequently, this left many students with struggles such as being unable to register for their desired courses.
Difficulties During Course Registration
At exactly 2:00 p.m. on August 12, students attempted to log onto the registration site to enroll in their desired classes. However, some students were unable to reach the registration webpage and were left waiting on the loading screen for extended periods. Given that class sizes are limited, the affected students expressed frustration at being unable to secure their planned courses.
Following the incident, the GIST Student Council conducted a survey to measure the range of impact, where a total of 225 GIST undergraduates participated. It was reported that most students used PC bangs (internet cafes) for faster connection (68%), while others registered from home (16.9%) or on campus (7.6%). Nearly all students opted for desktops with wired internet connections to ensure stability (80.4%). However, some preferred to use laptops (17.3%) or smartphones (1.33%). Among the 255 students who reported difficulties, 197 (87.6%) faced server access issues where the page was inaccessible for over a minute. Other problems included error pop-ups (labeled as “Failed”) that prevented course enrollment when clicking the registration button (63.1%) and malfunctioning “registration” buttons (47.1%).
The disruptions were most common within the first five minutes after registration started (54.7%) but persisted for up to 30 minutes or more in some cases (23.6%). This indicated that heavy simultaneous access had overloaded the server, where such issues persisted for extended durations. Consequently, students were unable to register for irreplaceable courses (such as those required for graduation or those related to your major), where it was reported that each respondent had missed about 0~4 courses of such nature. Due to these difficulties, some were even forced to enroll in courses outside their major or in upper-level classes, while others even considered taking a leave of absence or extending their studies. Eventually, students demanded for the school to issue an apology and take steps to prevent recurrence (52.9%). Other demands included “roll-backing” the registration process and rerunning it for fairness (24%), and even partial tuition refunds (12.4%).
Confusion persisted until the school issued an official announcement 1 hour and 40 minutes after registration began. With 255 reports of such issues (and possibly even more), it was impossible to dismiss the course registration errors as small-scale incidents.
The School’s Response
Later on, the Student Council held a meeting with the heads of the Information Operations, Academic Affairs, and Information Security teams. They emphasized students’ concerns based on the survey results and requested measures such as introducing a “basket” system, live server status updates, strengthening the server, and preparing contingency manuals.
The school explained that the issue originated with the Information Security Team. It was explained that the registration server is protected by a web firewall designed to block external attacks and ensure stability. However, the same firewall had been in place for 10 years due to budget constraints, where although it had functioned without issue for the past three years, it failed during this semester’s registration. Especially, the sudden surge of student logins was misinterpreted as an attack, where the firewall started to block access. Fortunately, this firewall is now scheduled to be replaced. The Information Security Team leader stated, “the university budget office has contacted us immediately after the incident. We sincerely apologize, and with the budget now approved, we are proceeding with equipment replacement. The new firewall should be installed within two months.” It was further commented, “the errors over the past three semesters were each caused by different issues. Due to the complexity of large servers, fixing one problem can unexpectedly trigger another. We are currently monitoring the server in four separate parts to prevent recurrence.” With self-reflection and sincerity, the leader also explained that server upgrades will now proceed in the form of replacing outdated equipment, where the most urgent priority is upgrading the outdated internet line. It was noted that the current transmission bandwidth of 10G is scheduled to increase to 40G during next year’s infrastructure improvement project.
Regarding the proposed basket system, the Academic Affairs Team leader stated, “we are aware of the basket system used at other universities and view it positively. In fact, we have already discussed it with the Information Security Team and are considering implementation. However, budget issues still remain, where it is hard to make any confirmations.” They added that since the basket system would rely on the same procedures as the current server, it could place additional strain on the system, making careful consideration necessary. Nevertheless, the school has acknowledged the recurring errors of the past three semesters and expressed regret, while also pledging to rebuild a stable registration system. In addition to the basket system, the Information Team is also positively reviewing revisions to the server’s UI (user interface) and increasing course enrollment caps to reduce inconvenience.
Finally, on September 1, the director of the Academic Information Office issued an official apology, acknowledging the incident and affirming the school’s commitment to improvements. The school stated that it accepts responsibility and will work to restore trust by resolving these issues. Students now hope that they will be able to register for their desired courses without further errors.
Translated by Yoonseo Huh