Outage of Online Course System Impacts Thousands of USU Students, Faculty

For thousands of Utah State University students it wasn’t the dog that ate the homework but corrupt data in a database called Blackboard Vista, an online course system used by university and college students statewide and hosted by UEN, the Utah Education Network.

As a result, any data submitted by students or faculty between Nov. 13, at 12:30 p.m., and early morning Friday, Nov. 16, was lost, according to Mike Petersen, UEN executive director. 

 

“The staff at UEN sincerely apologizes for the inconvenience this outage caused USU students and faculty,” Petersen said. “We are doing everything we can to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

 

Beyond the “thousands” estimate, it is difficult to pinpoint how many USU students and courses were affected. That is because it is an individual choice by faculty whether they use the Blackboard system or not. There is no central register, said Raymond T. Coward, USU executive vice president and provost.

 

Because some students may not even be aware that this outage occurred and that some of their assignments may need to be re-submitted, every effort is being made by university administrators to alert students and faculty, Coward said.

 

The university has taken multiple approaches in communicating to students through notices to all deans, department heads and network managers as well as a paid advertisement in the student newspaper, said Michelle B. Larson, assistant provost.

 

Students who are using the Blackboard system are encouraged to contact their instructors to make arrangements for re-submitting work, if necessary. At this time, it is not expected that anything lost in the outage will be recovered, Coward said.

 

The provost asked that deans and department heads be helpful and understanding with students and to act in a manner “that is fair for the students and appropriate for the particular situation of each course.”

 

He said USU is proud to provide students educational opportunities that use the latest technology, but acknowledged that the use of advanced technology comes with some inherent risks of data loss.

 

“Please accept our apology for the inconvenience this has caused to all those who use this system,” he said in the newspaper advertisement.

 

UEN is taking the necessary steps to have a mirrored backup site in place before spring semester to give them the ability to immediately switch to a backup site if a similar problem were to occur in the future, Petersen said.

 

Contacts: Raymond T. Coward, 435-797-1167,  Michelle B. Larson, 435-797-1121, Stacie Gomm, 435-770-0931, Mike Petersen, 801-581-6991.

 

Writer:  John DeVilbiss, 435-797-1358