IHSA Announcements
April 10, 2000
April Technology Update
Here's an update on recent changes made to the IHSA's Internet services and a progress report on Internet issues.
On Saturday (April 8), IHSA switched its Internet Service Provider to Multi-Ad Services, Inc., of Peoria. ISP changes can usually be accomplished without major problems, but it is possible that for a couple of days some users will have difficulty reaching our Web site or sending us e-mail. During the transition period, you can also reach our Web site at this address: ihsa.multi-ad.com.
If you continue to have such problems later in the week, please call Scott Johnson at 309-663-6377 and describe the problem. It is also possible that you can reach our Web site, but a particular part no longer works as intended (probably because a file reference is in upper-case letters, which won't work on the new system). Again, please call or e-mail Scott (scott@ihsa.org) so that we can fix the problem immediately.
The ISP change is the latest, and most important, in a series of moves designed to provide a wide range of services to the IHSA community. If you have been following our periodic updates, you know that we have not been able to accomplish these changes at the rate we originally planned. Problems with the phone company and unforeseen days spent dealing with the ongoing construction in the IHSA Office pushed our milestones so far into the sports season that it was impossible to get most of our projects back on track this year.
Still, we have been able to accomplish some of our goals. iHigh.com, our Internet partner, has made great strides in providing interactive services to all IHSA member schools, and delivered unprecedented Internet coverage of the girls and boys basketball tournaments. And on IHSA.org, we were able to implement our new interactive system for gathering and posting sectional tournament results in bowling, swimming, wrestling, and speech, and plan to do so again for this spring's individual sports. IHSA.org also provided its own statistical livecast during the boys basketball tournaments.
When everything is working as it should be, the first big project on our list we'll complete will be the Officials Center, which will provide many services to our licensed officials. We expect to open the Officials Center during the summer for use during the 2000-01 school year. Its first major function will be to provide testing for the fall sports.
It's been a long winter, but we now feel that most of the bumps are behind us, and the road looks smooth ahead. Thank you for your patience.
Scott Johnson
Director of Information Technology