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Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Incomplete Message - Part 2

In an earlier posting, we noted that UCLA had sent out a text alert (shown here) saying that proof of vaccination was needed 14 days before the start of fall instruction.* We noted that the text was unclear in that some schools, e.g., law, began earlier than others. But assuming that the start of instruction was for the general campus, the date 14 days before would work out to Sept. 9. There was no clear information as to how to upload proof.

Because of this confusion, an unnamed administrative person in an unnamed department sent out the following message to faculty:

If you are trying to check your vaccination status, it appears that we will be able to see this beginning Sept. 9th in the portal mentioned below. I found this information here: https://covid-19.ucla.edu/all-rtc/verifying-your-vaccination-requesting-an-exemption/


I hope that helps. It’s all very confusing.

If you go to that link, you will eventually come to:



The problem begins here. What most people will have is a photo taken of their vaccination card. But if you try to upload it, you will likely be told the file is too big. The problem is a cellphone photo (or likely any photo you take) will be bigger than 1MB. THIS IS A MAJOR FLAW. There are ways around it which I won't go into, but the website cannot remain with this major bug. It needs to be resolved ASAP, given the Sept. 9 deadline.

Yours truly did succeed in uploading an image below 1MB and the system said it received it. But I continued and the system basically went into a loop taking me back to the step above. There was no sign the system "knew" that I had uploaded proof and that it had acknowledged it.


There are other annoyances because the system doesn't break down the workforce sufficiently. There is a question about sharing with union representatives. But ladder faculty are not union-represented. There is a question about a supervisor, but who is the supervisor of a ladder faculty member. A dean? A department chair? The chancellor?


The 1 MB limit must be removed. The limited number of types of files accepted must be removed. Any file must be accepted in any commonly-used format. And once the proof of vaccination has been uploaded, an email with an acknowledgment needs to be sent.


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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2021/08/incomplete-message.html.

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