"Website Crashed Again" University Faces Chaos on First Day of 'Online Semester'

Cyber Classes at Universities... Server Crashes Due to High Traffic
Enrolled Students "Worried About Attendance Verification Issues"
Petitions for Partial Tuition Refunds Also Arise

On the 16th, the Seoul National University homepage, which experienced a surge in visitors, temporarily went down. / Photo by Seoul National University Online Bulletin Board Capture

[Asia Economy reporters Seunggon Han and intern Juhyung Lim] Universities that postponed the start of the semester by two weeks began their first semester with online lectures on the 16th, but classes faced major disruptions from the very first day due to webpage crashes and server errors. The school servers were overloaded as many users tried to access them simultaneously.

That morning, the cyber campus servers of some Seoul universities, including Seoul National University, Korea University, and University of Seoul, temporarily went down. The homepage crashed or videos froze due to the surge in visitors.

The situation was similar at universities in the metropolitan area. Inha University experienced errors accessing the pre-recorded online lecture website from the first period. At Incheon National University, the website became unresponsive or video playback was interrupted repeatedly as many students logged in during the morning hours. Additionally, quizzes and file downloads did not function smoothly.

On the morning of the 16th, enrolled students are attending online lectures and other non-face-to-face classes at Gwangju University Library in Nam-gu, Gwangju. / Photo by Yonhap News

As the situation worsened, some enrolled students voiced their complaints. Even when they managed to access the homepage, errors prevented video playback. At some lecture videos from Konkuk University and Hanyang University, pressing the play button resulted in messages such as "Cannot load video" or "Not within the enrollment period," and the videos failed to display.

University server management departments focused all efforts on server recovery, including conducting temporary inspections, while suspending some services temporarily.

Korea University’s e-learning support team stated in a campus notice that "server crashes due to overload are occurring," and advised students to "attend classes from locations with stable wired internet connections and avoid logging in simultaneously from multiple devices."

Kookmin University posted a notice on its homepage stating, "Due to emergency server maintenance, video upload and viewing services will be temporarily suspended."

On the morning of the 16th, when most universities have started their semester, the area in front of the College of Humanities at Chonnam National University, usually bustling with students attending classes, appears deserted. / Photo by Yonhap News

Earlier, the Ministry of Education recommended that domestic universities delay the semester start by up to four weeks to prevent mass infections of the novel coronavirus. Most universities postponed the start by two weeks and replaced the remaining two weeks of academic schedules with online lectures.

However, as online lecture services did not proceed smoothly, student dissatisfaction has increased. Some students have even requested partial refunds of their tuition fees.

On the 2nd, a petition titled "Request for Tuition Reduction Due to University Semester Postponement" was posted on the Blue House’s public petition board. As of 7 a.m. on the 17th, the petition had received over 78,000 signatures.

In the petition, the petitioner argued, "Online lectures inevitably have lower quality than offline lectures," and "students need to be partially compensated for this disadvantage through tuition reductions."