A LEARNing experience

Once upon a time, the only way to get assignment details from your professor was by furiously scribbling down instructions written on a transparency slapped on the bright, hot surface of an overhead projector, and the preferred method of submitting an assignment was by slipping a hard copy underneath the locked door of your professor's office before staggering back to bed to recover from the all-nighter you had just pulled. When I was in fourth year, one of my profs asked us to "upload" soft copies of our essays to a "bulletin board" on the course's "web page" and we nearly burned him as a witch.

But time makes fools of us all, and with this week's 65-hour (and counting) outage of Waterloo LEARN, students and instructors alike suddenly found themselves in a bygone age, disconnected from their course materials and unable to submit their assignments to the learning management system the university adopted in 2011 as a replacement for the erstwhile UW-ACE.

The outage began affecting users around 3:25 p.m. on Tuesday, January 29, and has continued in fits and starts ever since.

The source of the problem can be found in the cloud, which, rather than having a silver lining, seems to be sheened in a vapour of fail. According to reports from Information Systems & Technology, Desire2Learn (D2L), the company behind Waterloo LEARN, ran into trouble during a planned data storage infrastructure upgrade when problems arose thanks to incompatible technologies introduced during the data migration. D2L was moving the University of Waterloo's—and several other institutions's—online content over to a new storage technology at one of its cloud data centres when the problems occurred. Universities whose content had not yet been migrated were unaffected, as were those schools whose data had been completely migrated to the new storage technology.

Complaints about errors and slow run times began trickling, and then flooding in on social media as students and instructors encountered difficulties Tuesday, and affected institutions, including Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of New Brunswick began providing updates on the service interruption. Early estimates provided by D2L about repair times proved overly optimistic as hours stretched into days.

IST has been posting regular notices on their Waterloo LEARN service notice board and their own site as information becomes available from D2L, and the university's Twitter account constantly updated its followers with news, what there was of it.

John Baker, president and CEO of Desire2Learn, also posted a message to affected institutions, indicating that D2L is "working around the clock utilizing every available resource including those of our partners to drive resolution to this problem."

Memos sent by IST to faculty deans and a message sent to all students by Vice-President, Academic & Provost Geoff McBoyle yesterday have outlined the impact of the outage on users and offered suggestions for ways forward.

"We recommend you email your students to inform them of how their assignments, midterms, and other course activities will be affected, if at all, by the technical problems," says the memo from IST, which is intended to be cascaded to instructors by the faculty deans. "It will be up to each instructor to assess how much impact the loss of the system has had on their own course activities, and respond accordingly."

Instructions for emailing students and sending them files are on the Waterloo LEARN Help page. The Registrar's Office has also been alerted to the possibility of impacts on midterm scheduling.

"Instructors have been advised to use email to let you know if your assignments, midterms, and other course activities are impacted by the technical problems, and to communicate a contingency plan and/or materials, making reasonable accommodations where appropriate," the provost wrote in his message to students. "These accommodations will vary from course to course, depending upon the impact the loss of the system has had on activities." The provost also thanked students for their patience and understanding during the service outage.

An update sent out around 9:22 p.m. last night from D2L indicated that they had confirmed the source of the problem and had found the solution, which involved moving the University of Waterloo's data, as well as data for nearly a quarter of their customers, from behind the "data virtualization device" that was causing the problem.

As of the date of this publication, the system is still down, and D2L has promised another update on the situation soon.

 

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Career View Mirror launches today

The Career View Mirror career exploration tool, developed jointly by the Centre for Career Action and the Faculty of Science, launches today.

The Career View Mirror is designed to enable current science students to benefit from the advice and experience of Waterloo science alumni. Using the tool, students will be able to better explore their career options and gain valuable insight into a wide range of occupations. Students will be able to engage with the information they find on each alumni profile by rating the "career fit", saving information to a summary page, and adding their own notes and observations.

The Centre for Career Action intends to develop similar tools for other faculties based on the success of the initial project.

 

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Waterloo's role in local tech boom discussed

A presentation that includes the University of Waterloo's role in creating a high-tech community in Waterloo Region will be delivered Monday, February 4, at a meeting of the Kitchener Waterloo Kitchener Waterloo Linux User Group.

"A grassRoots History of the Early Hi-tech Community in KW" will be presented by Kevin Stumpf and promises to be anecdotal history of the early technological community in KW from 1920 to 1990.

"Imagine a workforce with a collective experience of several generations working in hi-tech?" reads the talk's abstract. "Bear in mind too that this workforce isn’t just techies. It includes everyone – clerical, administrators, and investors – all who have been exposed to growing hi-tech business since birth. Companies grow and shrink, come and go, but people remain so there is good news for KW, as well as communities anywhere that have incubated hi-tech companies."

The talk and ensuing discussion will take place on Monday, February 4 at St. John's Kitchener on 94 Victoria Street North in Kitchener.

"It is a cogent, albeit non-scientific, argument explaining why hi-tech has flourished and why it will continue to flourish. Of all the hi-tech companies rooted in KW we will listen to stories about 6 of them plus the University of Waterloo," writes Stumpf.

And if that weren't enough to pique your interest, Stumpf notes that "among other unusual information, you'll walk away finally knowing why that ex-CIA agent was in Kitchener in 1979."

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Performance appraisal season begins

"Staff Performance Appraisal season is now upon us," says a memo to staff from Human Resources, "and you share the responsibility with your manager to review, document and discuss your performance for 2012." 

The memo notes that there have been no changes to the standard performance evaluation forms for the 2012 review, and points staff members to the Performance Management website that is available to both parties in the review process and contains all the necessary forms, guides, and tips for achieving "an effective performance review."

The annual review "should include a meaningful discussion highlighting your accomplishments aligned to desired goals," the memo continues.

"Appraisals are a two way conversation and this is a good time for you to identify your areas of success, areas that you would like to work on improving, interest of future career opportunities and further development."

Reviews should take place between February 1 and March 8, and managers have from February 22 to March 15 to enter the staff performance rating into myHRinfo. The deadline for submitting completed hard copy performance evaluations to Human Resources is March 22. The memo encourages staff members to check with their managers to confirm departmental timelines, which often vary within the overall deadlines.

Any staff member with questions can discuss with their manager or HR Advisor.

 

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And now in no particular order, these things

A Town Hall meeting with President & Vice-Chancellor Feridun Hamdullahpur and Vice-President, Academic & Provost Geoff McBoyle has been scheduled for Tuesday, February 12 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Humanities Theatre. As always, members of the university community are encouraged to submit their questions via email, from the floor, and on Twitter by sending them to @uWaterlooLIVE or by using the hashtag #uwth. The hashtag can also be used to follow @uWaterlooLIVE's tweets from the meeting, as well as the tweets written by those who are attending the meeting or watching the webcast.

The Imaginus poster sale will take place in the Student Life Centre's Great Hall from Monday, February 4 to Wednesday, February 6, from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (5:00 p.m. on February 6).

A local committee of DeafBlind Ontario Services whose members include uWaterloo staff and alumni, is holding a fundraiser called ‘Dining in the Dark' at the Westmount Golf and Country Club on February 28. The event is being billed as an "extraordinary culinary adventure" that involves enjoying a dinner while blindfolded. The purpose of the event is to raise money for local residences where those who are deafblind reside. Raffles, a silent auction, and live entertainment will be featured. Tickets can be bought online.

 

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