August 31, 1998 Volume 21, No. 1

Work Continues on Millennium Bug

Departmental Cooperation Is Essential to Solving Problem

The dawn of the new millennium lies just 477 days away, and the clock is ticking.

It's no Doomsday Clock, the symbolic timepiece that starkly lays out for us how close the world has edged to nuclear holocaust, but make no mistake --- the countdown to the year 2000 is not occurring without some trepidation.

That's because of the simultaneous approach of the widely discussed but perhaps little understood "Millennium Bug," the computer flaw that left uncorrected could grind our technology-dependent world to a halt.

The problem is basic. Until recently, it was a common practice for computer programmers to store the year portion of a date as a two digit number, as in "98." At the turn of the century, the roll-over to "00" would incorrectly prompt many computers to process information is if it were 1900, posing a huge challenge to most systems when faced with even the simplest of calculations. A credit card bill owed in the first week of January 2000 could be calculated as 100 years past due, for example.

Learn more about Ithaca College's Y2K program by checking out the Y2K web site.

Companies and businesses around the globe are scrambling to fix the bug, but reports are that many of them are far behind schedule.

At Ithaca College, the Office of Information Technology has been systematically addressing the "Y2K" problem in its central information systems for several years. Significant progress has been made there, and attention has now been turned to the various College departments that employ systems not provided by or under the control of OIT.

"We think we're in real good shape in terms of our central systems and their readiness for the year 2000, but we're asking departments to make sure the products they're using are ready, as well," says OIT director Ed Fuller, a member of the College's Y2K Task Force. "This is important. We're relying on the departments to do this part of the business, because while there are some things we can do centrally, there are also some things out there that we don't even know exist."

Deans, directors, and department chairs were asked in May to begin evaluations of Y2K readiness in their areas. Response has been slow, and another plea has gone out that those information systems evaluations be completed by October 2. Those people must also determine whether any outside business partners they may use are Y2K compliant, and the results of those surveys should be forwarded to the Y2K Task Force by October 23.

For complete information about the College's Y2K efforts and what you need to do, view the task force's web page at http://www.ithaca.edu/y2k/.

"We don't want anybody to be caught short in the year 2000," says Fuller. "We want people to pay attention to this. It's not a fun exercise, but everyone needs to understand it's an important one to undertake for the good of the College."