Fabius Chen | fabiuschen@nus.edu.sg
Jason Hau | jasonhau@nus.edu.sg
the ridge news
A NUSSU Publication
Photo: the ridge
You notice a leak in the walls of a ship. You plug the hole, only for another to pop up somewhere else. Then another; and another.
This scenario sounds like it came straight out of a Looney Tunes cartoon but it is a problem that the National University of Singapore (NUS) faces almost every semester.
The latest hole appeared on Dec. 16, 2008, a full week before the scheduled release of the examination results.
A member of a popular local online forum posted instructions on how undergraduates from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) could view their updated Cumulative Average Point (CAP) scores by logging into the Graduating & Academic Planning System (GAPS).
The steps required the user to view the page’s source code, hardly a common thing to do but given the number of people waiting for a leak to spring, it was only a matter of time before one was discovered.
How many, you may ask.
In fact, this particular thread is over 80 pages long, with more than 1,200 posts since May 2007.
According to Associate Professor John Richardson, Vice Dean for Undergraduate Matters in the FASS Dean’s Office, a routine check of the GAPS system led to the discovery and subsequent rectification of the leak.
“It was a glitch in the system and the IT team worked very quickly to rectify the fault,” Prof Richardson explained.
He also stressed that there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the incident and that “We don’t blame the students for discovering the leak, as it was an open system.”
Candidly, he described the leak as “akin to a student discovering a piece of paper, containing their results, that was dropped on the floor and then telling his or her friends about it.”
Guidelines on how to deal with such events include immediately blocking access to the faulty system and implementing new measures to ensure no future leaks from that source.
Despite the updated CAP scores being available a week before the official release of results, the Dean’s Office is adamant that grades are being processed as promptly as possible.
Mrs. Karen Tong, Assistant Manager of the FASS Dean’s Office, commented: “In the interest of all students, the staff is already working as quickly as they can to ensure that they get a fair and accurate result out.”
This seems fair enough, considering NUS released its results just two weeks after the end of examinations.
In contrast, other major local universities can take longer for their results to released, a point that Mrs. Tong reiterated to the Ridge.
For example, the National Technological University released their results on Dec. 29, even though their examinations ended one week earlier than NUS.
In addition, it seemed that many students were oblivious, or simply did not bother that there was a leak.
“I did not know about the leak. In fact, I was not exactly looking forward to seeing my grades too,” said Chen Zhi Ying, a third-year economics major.
Prof. Richardson summed up the feelings of many when he told the Ridge, “Perhaps students these days are becoming too concerned about their grades. The passion and love for learning should be the primary factors.”
While this incident was due to a flaw in a system maintained by FASS, students should take note that they should refrain from actively seeking out leaks, lest it escalates to a university-level case.
Unlike this case, hacking into a closed system is a serious and possibly illegal action.
Prof. Richardson explained that students suspected of that would be referred to the university Board of Discipline.
Now that the problem with GAPS has been resolved and the particular glitch removed, one wonders if another leak from another source will appear in four months’ time.
Perhaps third-year Social Work undergraduate Patrick Song sums up the feelings of many when he quipped, “I missed out on the leak this time, but hopefully I can see the leak the next time it happens.”
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