Brace yourselves OCCC students. Starting at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 21, MineOnline will go down and will remain out-of-service until early Tuesday morning, Nov. 26.

During this time, students will not be able to enroll in or drop classes, nor will they be able to pay tuition online, check financial aid status or request a transcript, said John Richardson, online marketing coordinator in the Marketing and Public Relations department.

All of the MineOnline data is currently stored in one database format, said Connie Drummond, OCCC programming coordinator and systems analyst.

The system upgrade will consist of converting to “more of an industry- standard database,” Drummond said.

Richardson acknowledges the timing of the shutdown isn’t perfect.

“Whenever you’re doing big technological upgrades, there’s never a good time to do them,” he said.

He and Drummond pointed out the enrollment period is usually not heavy at this time of year.

Crystal Fry, premed major, is worried about the maintenance period affecting her schooling, mainly because of her upcoming move shortly after the site shutdown.

“I, for one, need it to pay my balance and also to transfer to El Paso next month and I can’t do that if the site is down,” Fry said.

While it may be inconvenient in some situations, there is still good news.

Student email accounts will still be operational and Moodle, the online learning system, will still be accessible, Richardson said.

Also, tuition bills can always be paid by cash or check in the Bursar’s office on campus.

Employees in the registration area can provide assistance surrounding scheduling and enrollment.

The staff will be able to reserve student enrollment requests for processing once the new system is made available.

Faith Nowak, business accounting major, said she was involved in a long class discussion over the MineOnline system upgrade while in her Introduction to Business class.

Nowak’s professor, Michelle Anderson, brought her husband, David Anderson, to discuss the matter with the students.

As Information Technology Infrastructure director at OCCC, he was able to answer some student questions, as well as provide them with alternative solutions for their MineOnline needs.

After being advised to take advantage of the Bursar’s office and academic advisers during the maintenance period, Nowak said she was still frustrated.

“That would be a great alternative, except for the fact that most people, even me, don’t have time out of classes to go do things like that,” she said.

“I literally go to school every day and then straight to work.”

Nevertheless, she said, she came away from the class with a better understanding of the issue.

David Anderson reminded Nowak and her fellow students that the site shutdown would not occur during a popular enrollment period.

She said her classmates brought up the point that many students wait until the last minute to enroll anyway.

Nowak said next semester’s payments aren’t due until after the maintenance period, so it may or may not be a big issue for most students.

Richardson said the best advice is to plan ahead.

Looking over schedules, tuition bills, transcripts, and financial aid information as soon as possible, just to make sure, will help prevent being out of luck during the MineOnline shutdown from Nov. 21 through 26.

For more information, call David Anderson at 405-682-1611, ext. 7799, or email danderson@occc.edu.