Waterford University discussion

callaway92

Digital Society wrote: »

In what department?

Here

Terms have changed significantly to what they would've been in the past.

As far as I understand, the School of Business still not taking any new lecturers in. They are still trying to lower numbers significantly.

rayr

callaway92 wrote: »

As far as I understand, the School of Business still not taking any new lecturers in. They are still trying to lower numbers significantly.

Says who?

fiachr_a

Ireland, Spain, and Greece have the highest number of college graduates in the EU. We should be closing colleges in this country not creating new ones.

callaway92

rayr wrote: »

Says who?

I wouldn't say - just in case they are wrong.

rayr

callaway92 wrote: »

I wouldn't say - just in case they are wrong.

Yes they probably are. Watch this space for two new posts in SoB.

rayr

fiachr_a wrote: »

Ireland, Spain, and Greece have the highest number of college graduates in the EU. We should be closing colleges in this country not creating new ones.

Yeah, aspiration be be better is an awful thing. From your previous posts you are obviously anti progress so why not leave it to those of us that see the real need and economic, cultural and social value of a university for Waterford.

callaway92

For the day that's in it, WIT's modern technology has let them down with the results being delayed until tomorrow due to an unforseen "cyber attack"

Fair embarrassing college

callaway92

rayr wrote: »

Yes they probably are. Watch this space for two new posts in SoB.

cool, nice to hear.

fiachr_a

rayr wrote: »

Yeah, aspiration be be better is an awful thing. From your previous posts you are obviously anti progress so why not leave it to those of us that see the real need and economic, cultural and social value of a university for Waterford.

It's in today's newspapers. One of the biggest failures of the last decade, too many students in this country doing useless 3rd level courses in crap colleges. Over-educated and underskilled and employers are not impressed. There's nothing progressive about creating another mediocre Irish university offering useless degrees in psychology or tourism management. If Waterford wants progress then invent something new!

rayr

Yes disastrous about the results. Down solely to lack of investment by consecutive govts in the IoT sector. Yet another reason for uni status to be able to access non-Govt sources of finance. (Ref UL).

rayr

It is not that long ago that we had full employment. Govt. mismanagement and under regulation of a small no of financial institutions led to financial ruination of the state finances. However what created that full employment was our highly educated workforce that attracted (and retains) some of the worlds largest employers as well as a vibrant indigenous sector in food, agri, pharma, IT etc.etc.

Generalisations about the entire education system does the country a disserivce. The current funding models for education encourage creation of particularly STEM graduates however students still make their own choices based on their abilities.

WIT has been one one the most innovative IOTs in the country constantly pushing the boundaries to its remit, often against the wishes of those in authority. Currently TSSG, SEAM and MPRG are all at the forefront of global research in their respective fields. Imagine what could be achieved with greater freedom and funding.

RYGCat

rayr wrote: »

Yes disastrous about the results. Down solely to lack of investment by consecutive govts in the IoT sector. Yet another reason for uni status to be able to access non-Govt sources of finance. (Ref UL).

Have other IoTs results been similarly affected?

RYGCat

RYGCat wrote: »

Have other IoTs results been similarly affected?

Servers crash all the time, It was ddos apparently. They got it back up as quick as possible. In my opinion a lot of people overreacted about the server crashing, these things happen sometimes... can't be helped. I was waiting for results and got them a few hours later, an annoyance yes, end of the world it was not.

wellboytoo

Can someone crash Fiachr_a's server please?

imacman

Lots of stuff in the media about Exam results problems http://www.thejournal.ie/waterford-institute-of-technology-hacked-2150632-Jun2015/
I have talked to one of the guys in computer services and they have had issues with DDOS attacks already this year and yesterday was a directed malicious attack on WIT. Unfortunately the serious networking equipment that large corporations have which could deal with these large scale DDOS attacks costs around quarter of a million that the college does not have in its budget.So resources are a real issue.

PeteFalk78

imacman wrote: »

Lots of stuff in the media about Exam results problems http://www.thejournal.ie/waterford-institute-of-technology-hacked-2150632-Jun2015/
I have talked to one of the guys in computer services and they have had issues with DDOS attacks already this year and yesterday was a directed malicious attack on WIT. Unfortunately the serious networking equipment that large corporations have which could deal with these large scale DDOS attacks costs around quarter of a million that the college does not have in its budget.So resources are a real issue.

I've also a contact in the Computing Services department and she said that there was no DDOS attack and was purely down to underestimating the amount of traffic that was going to hit the server.

imacman

PeteFalk78 wrote: »

I've also a contact in the Computing Services department and she said that there was no DDOS attack and was purely down to underestimating the amount of traffic that was going to hit the server.

Im sorry thats absolute rubbish,Heanet have confirmed this morning that WIT came under a massive DDOS attack yesterday from hosts all over the world.No questions about it , 5 million page requests every minute , would have brought down any webserver

RYGCat

imacman wrote: »

Im sorry thats absolute rubbish,Heanet have confirmed this morning that WIT came under a massive DDOS attack yesterday from hosts all over the world.No questions about it , 5 million page requests every minute , would have brought down any webserver

Surely TSSG could have prevented this!

rayr

The TSSG is a research group not the IT Dept.

imacman

A two part malicious DDOS attack on the WIT website and the WIT exams server.Somebody out there doesn't like WIT and wants to damage the institute organisation and reputation.

Whatsisname

Not saying it wasn't an attack but the site seems to crash every time results are released.

rayr

See #981

Whatsisname

rayr wrote: »

See #981

Re-read #981

RYGCat

imacman wrote: »

A two part malicious DDOS attack on the WIT website and the WIT exams server.Somebody out there doesn't like WIT and wants to damage the institute organisation and reputation.

Oooooooh, a conspiracy!!

RYGCat

rayr wrote: »

The TSSG is a research group not the IT Dept.

I know. But as the IT dept couldn't prevent it, surely TSSG as a leading research group could have??

Professey Chin

RYGCat wrote: »

I know. But as the IT dept couldn't prevent it, surely TSSG as a leading research group could have??

That makes no sense. They're a research group alright but they wouldn't be a security research group. Itd be like saying leading medical scientists should have been able to stop a sinking ship.

imacman

Whatsisname wrote: »

Not saying it wasn't an attack but the site seems to crash every time results are released.

It did crash in June 2012 and repeat results in August 2012 after the WIT website was relaunched and that issue was resolved. Its been solid since and had no issues serving results till this attack

imacman

RYGCat wrote: »

I know. But as the IT dept couldn't prevent it, surely TSSG as a leading research group could have??

This isn't about knowledge gap its about resources and having the equipment to mitigate this kinds of attack.Simple fact is WIT doesn't have the IT budget implement the serious networking equipment needed , the IT budget just covers keeping the place ticking over at the moment and is some areas it doesn't even stretch to that.

fiachr_a

Why can't they think outside the box for once and read out everyone's exam results on WLR?

rayr

As mentioned previously. Lecturing positions in WIT including two in School of Business
http://www.irishjobs.ie/Jobs/Academic-Posts-June-2015-7586309.aspx