As much as we hope you found out about the Canvas outage last night with a mild “huh, ok,” when you read your email this morning, we know it’s more likely that the Canvas outage in the afternoon and evening of March 3rd disrupted your ability to do work – and disrupted your students! So we’re reaching out with a few bits of advice and strategies to help.
Should I bother sending one more email to my students?
We’re all drowning in emails and announcements these days, but nevertheless, this might be a good time to reach out and reassure your students that you were informed about this outage just as they were. Students can respond well to a message of care from you, even a brief one, that clarifies how the outage does (or doesn’t) affect their work in your class, and to remind them of what your policy is around student work and tech failure. You can also remind them of the resources for students available here , including Student Affairs Emergency Assistance, reached at DearbornCOVIDsupport@umich.edu
My students were taking a quiz when Canvas went down!
Gah! I’m sorry for you and your email inbox. One bit of good news – any answers your students had submitted prior to the outage should still be saved in there. But if you decide that the only way students can demonstrate this learning is in a timed quiz, you’re going to have to grant everyone an extra attempt to complete the quiz, with a new date. You might think about whether you’d be able to assess their learning this one time by asking them to write a summary of the main points for that section they were being quizzed on.
My students were supposed to post in a discussion forum when the outage happened!
Our students (and all of us) are balancing little slices of time available to concentrate on things like work and assignments, so it is possible for someone’s window of work time closed while Canvas was down. We’d recommend considering extending the posting or uploading deadline this time, just to alleviate the pressure on students, for whom this outage was also beyond their control.
Can I be sure that Canvas will be running for the exam I have scheduled in the next day or two?
Yes! At least, as sure as you were before. Outages like this are very unusual. That being said, if this has made you aware of the delicate nature of the tech infrastructure supporting your assignments, and you wanted to try designing assignments that are more tech-failure proof, you’re more than welcome to meet with an instructional designer at the Hub and brainstorm what your options are with us.
Image by www_slon_pics from Pixabay