ECnet has reported that its Matric Web site,
www.matric.co.za
, has been a huge success, serving over three million pages to date. The site, which went live on 1st December 1999, peaked with the ECnet handling 1000 requests simultaneously, with 100% uptime.
Says Bruce Sutherland ECnet`s facilities manager: This December was the first time that matriculants could get their full report cards via the Internet. We are still receiving requests for Matric report cards at the end of January, indicating a need for a medium which allows for back searching."
Sutherland says the huge growth in on-line visitors to the website reflects more than simply an increase in web-surfing. South Africans are changing their lifestyle by embracing the electronic age."
ECnet has been honing and testing its capacity over the past year to ensure the capability of coping with huge demand peaks in a short time frame. This included investing in high-end servers, upgrading software such as operating systems, databases and webservers, increasing bandwidth and improving the email functionality.
The matric service was initially developed as the official source of results for the media and tertiary education institutions. ECnet`s new website however, offered a lot more than just lists of results. Competitions for matric candidates with close on R100 000 worth of tuition fees were won by visitors.
The site also supplied names, addresses and contact numbers of universities, technikons and other tertiary institutions to facilitate easy enrolment. The results were [PG1]channelled to universities and other tertiary education institutions to streamline the acceptance of first year students, says Sutherland.
The growth of the Internet has influenced both business and leisure activities in South Africa and this has now extended to the educational sphere. The instant access to information, irrespective of location is particularly applicable in this case. Matriculants were able to access their full results from any part of the country, or overseas, and in areas where newspapers are not circulated. As the site will be up the entire year, pupils and institutions can refer to the information at any time, he explains.
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