Don McCubbrey's Blog

More Colorado IT Woes

I suppose this should be under the category of "Some People Never Learn", but it is related to CBMS inasmuch as it is one more failed computer system at the State of Colorado.  This one is at CDOT, the Colorado Department of Transportation, but it's only $30 million.  Well, to be more precise, we don't know if it's really a failed system.  What was reported in the Rocky Mountain News on March 13, in a story with the headline: "CDOT pay system blasted" is that a new computer system didn't pay highway workers for overtime which they earned cleaning up the unusually high piles of snow we had in December and January.  Well, OK, systems fail, but like CBMS, apparently project managers on this one failed to heed warnings that it wasn't going to work.  According to the article, Bill Cron, a CDOT information technology specialist, "said that when he repeatedly warned supervisors about the "horrible nature of the failure" that was looming, they kicked him off the SAP implementation team in May". Well, that's one way to handle bad news. 

My thanks to fellow "old IT warrior" Bill Gillette for calling this one to my attantion.

Textbook Costs in the US

Concern over the cost of textbooks in the US is heating up and is an issue that is not going to go away.  Good evidence of this is the story that came over the AP wires this morning, entitled "Tough Problem:  High textbook Costs". Here's a couple of quotes from the article, by Brian Bakst:

"In Minnesota, legislators are considering more tightly regulating the textbook publishing industry and requiring professors to be more cost-conscious in choosing course materials. At least a dozen other statehouses, from California to Connecticut, are taking up the issue.

"This is the hidden cost to higher education," said Democratic Rep. Frank Moe, the Minnesota's bill sponsor, who also teaches at Bemidji State University. "Reasonable profit makes sense. But the margins they are making on these textbooks is just absurd."  Another quote I like is:

"The textbook industry pulls in more than $6.5 billion a year at college bookstores, and college books which have tripled in price since 1986. The industry estimates four-year college students spend $644 annually on books; a 2005 government report put the figure at about $900 per year, but that figure includes supplies, too.

At one legislative hearing in Minnesota, student leaders displayed a shrink-wrapped bundle of materials for a single Spanish course. The tab: $193".

The whole article is worth a read.  Initiatives like the Global Text Project can help solve this "tough problem".

Some People Never Learn

The check-in kiosks of US Airways failed at several airports over the weekend.  As of this writing they're still down, resulting in long lines at several airports, including Charlotte, Philadelphia, Boston and Las Vegas, as reported in this story from CNN.Com.  According to airline spokeswoman, Elise Eberwein, the system is a consolidation of the reservation systems of US Airways and America West Airlines, which combined in 2005. "In a conversion of this type, there are so many different platforms, and systems that talk to others systems that talk to other systems," Eberwein said.

It would also help to test a conversion of this type thoroughly before going live with it.  That would have avoided the long lines at the check-in counters and the inconvenience experienced by thousnads of passengers.