As for security, the CAO has two main computers in Galway - a VAX 4700 which isn't linked to the outside world and the VAX 4500 to which the colleges can connect. So anybody gaining illegal access does so only with the shadow machine.
The CAO spokesman says security is a big priority as it is important that no one alters student information. For this reason he prefers to be cautious about changes for the future.
`THE Volkswagen Beetle is a fine machine and a Lamborghini might run faster but if the Volkswagen does the job just fine and the present system works, then why change it?" says the spokesman from the Central Applications Office in Galway. And there are a lot of people who just don't trust technology and prefer to receive a paper postage receipt in their hand, he warns. But there have been some enormous improvements in the CAO's technology since the days when you didn't expect your computer to weigh less than a ton and a half, he says.
The CAO is the clearing house for tens of thousands of students' applications to third-level educational institutions in Ireland each year. Its machines, now in Galway, are a far cry from the 1980s when it was based in Athlone and the old reliable PDP 11 34 minicomputer system used to fill a whole room. And the memory of its
1980s machine would equal that of today's laptop. Today their VAX 4700 and VAX 4500 would almost fit in your briefcase, the CAO spokesman says. Size definitely mattered back then, as did speed. Apparently the response time in 1985 was so slow that you could play a snooker frame while they waited for the computer to respond. But the biggest change in the past three years is more sleep, says systems analyst Ivor Gleeson. "That's because we don't have to download the huge amount of information onto magnetic tapes to be sent to 37 Irish institutions twice a week during the month of August every year. It was an unbelievable amount of work," he says. The Internet has halved their load, and it means every college can now access the entire record of each applicant. The CAO processes the applications and they are downloaded in an instant.
The processing of forms within the CAO has also changed dramatically. A new venture is being organised by the National Information Technology in Education Centre, based in Dublin City University. NITEC will give any student in the country the option of filling in their CAO forms online via the Web from next autumn, at NITEC's site (http://kola.dcu.ie/ iednet). Or the student will be able to purchase a disk-based version from NITEC in coming months. Either way, the student simply edits the form on screen and there are various inbuilt checks to ensure correct codes are entered.
The paper forms will still be available for those who prefer the manual method, but the new online method will cost you £3 less - and reach the CAO in Galway within seconds, avoiding all those postal delays.
In the old days the CAO also had limited disk space, so only one year's records at a time could be kept on the computer. Now the records online can stretch as far back as 1989. On the software side they use Dibol, a version of Cobol. Their programs are written in-house - "it's not an `off the shelf' package because its more useful to us that way, as it can be changed and amended." As for security, the CAO has two main computers in Galway - a VAX 4700 which isn't linked to the outside world and the VAX 4500 to which the colleges can connect. So anybody gaining illegal access does so only with the shadow machine.
The CAO spokesman says security is a big priority as it is important that no one alters student information. For this reason he prefers to be cautious about changes for the future.