Anyone Else Hit a Wall?

[Cheerful]

The problem is sometimes the IT folks need a good week to get everything transitioned over, upgraded, tested, and then fixed when something goes wrong.  It's far better to schedule that over Christmas when fewer faculty will be using it daily than to pick the week before courses start when everyone should be using the LMS daily.
There's no good time to make the LMS totally unavailable, but during Christmas week (if IT can make it work with their employees' schedules) is a much less bad time than many other common choices that work better for the employees in IT.

No, it's unacceptable.  You haven't taught using a LMS in recent years, have you?  Some of us are at universities where we've done so for many years.

We're keeping our LMS (Blackboard. . . yay?) for the foreseeable future*, but a notice went up last week saying that it will be unavailable from Dec. 22-January 5? 6? 

That LMS unavailability is beyond ridiculous.  Faculty should make it clear that this is unacceptable.

Totally agree.

I have taken to putting all the docs I prepare for my online classes on my Google drive and making them available to the students by sharing them with links. It gives me less work and frusration when schools decide to change their LMS, accidentally delete a shell, or the LMS goes down.

Smart practice.

[polly_mer]

So when does IT get to do their thing that may require taking everything offline during normal business hours?

I don't use LMSs now, true.  I do daily use large clusters, servers, and hideously networked things.  Needing to change out parts of systems, upgrade software, and upgrade networks are things that is best done when everything is offline to users and yet is during business hours so that one can coordinate with vendors.

Really big places may have redundancies in place so that faculty may not see the changes.  Smaller places will not have those redundancies and one doesn't have to be all the way down to Super Dinky to be small enough to need a full week shutdown.

Faculty who are merely end users without knowing the IT aspects are not good judges of what is reasonable or necessary.

[eigen]

So when does IT get to do their thing that may require taking everything offline during normal business hours?

I don't use LMSs now, true.  I do daily use large clusters, servers, and hideously networked things.  Needing to change out parts of systems, upgrade software, and upgrade networks are things that is best done when everything is offline to users and yet is during business hours so that one can coordinate with vendors.

Really big places may have redundancies in place so that faculty may not see the changes.  Smaller places will not have those redundancies and one doesn't have to be all the way down to Super Dinky to be small enough to need a full week shutdown.

Faculty who are merely end users without knowing the IT aspects are not good judges of what is reasonable or necessary.

Taking the LMS offline for 2 weeks straight at any time is unacceptable, imo. It would cripple all of our efforts to prepare for the spring, to wrap things up from the fall, for students working on incompletes over the break, etc.

[eigen]

And to the larger topic of the thread:

Yes. Wall. Hit it. Hard.

[OneMoreYear]

Wall hit. Had to close out my email to refrain from responding in a manner that would have bought me an express meeting with my dean
I am now watching an old episodes of the Great British Baking Show and wishing that my task for tomorrow was making gingerbread. 

[bio-nonymous]

And to the larger topic of the thread:

Yes. Wall. Hit it. Hard.

^+10!
I have had enough of the election, enough of the pandemic, enough of the online teaching, enough of the conflicting messages from the administration, enough of everything--I NEED A BREAK! Anything else I have to say would better be reserved for the venting thread...(or maybe a new whining thread...) :(

[mamselle]

Another reminder for those in need, that the quiet room is open...all are welcome, all simple needs for a soothing environment met...

   https://thefora.org/index.php?topic=1878.0

M.

[Harlow2]

I have.  My grad student classes keep me engaged but dissertation students I chair are not thinking through things the way they should. My annoyance may show in an email I sent yesterday despite my emoticon. I know they are stressed too.  I've all but abandoned my research ( university that wants to be an R 1 took away our research time) and am trying figure out whether I care if they don't.  I'm thinking about attending a retirement seminar in 2 weeks. 

[apl68]

Thanks LarryC for the reminder that these are extraordinary times.

For the historians among us, this gives us some perspective on what it was like for those who experienced earlier prolonged crises like wars, epidemics, etc.

I've unfortunately been hitting walls of some kind or another occasionally for most of my life.  Sometimes harder than others.  To try to stay off the wall, I've taken my only vacation this year.  Now I'm back at work.  Hopefully I won't hit any walls while playing post vacation catch-up.

[polly_mer]

So when does IT get to do their thing that may require taking everything offline during normal business hours?

I don't use LMSs now, true.  I do daily use large clusters, servers, and hideously networked things.  Needing to change out parts of systems, upgrade software, and upgrade networks are things that is best done when everything is offline to users and yet is during business hours so that one can coordinate with vendors.

Really big places may have redundancies in place so that faculty may not see the changes.  Smaller places will not have those redundancies and one doesn't have to be all the way down to Super Dinky to be small enough to need a full week shutdown.

Faculty who are merely end users without knowing the IT aspects are not good judges of what is reasonable or necessary.

Taking the LMS offline for 2 weeks straight at any time is unacceptable, imo. It would cripple all of our efforts to prepare for the spring, to wrap things up from the fall, for students working on incompletes over the break, etc.

That's a faculty view.  What is necessary for the IT/network needs and when is a better time for a lengthy shutdown?

You haven't seen outrage at completely unacceptableness until you've lived, as we did last January, through being forced to give up our Macs and were completely without computer access for several days as full-time computational scientists on deadlines.  That was a true computer security need trumping literally all work. 

Shutting off access during the holidays to somewhat inconvenience faculty who just want to get ahead seems pretty small compared to other computer sagas that rose to extremely necessary, especially when given almost two months notice to make alternate plans.

[eigen]

So when does IT get to do their thing that may require taking everything offline during normal business hours?

I don't use LMSs now, true.  I do daily use large clusters, servers, and hideously networked things.  Needing to change out parts of systems, upgrade software, and upgrade networks are things that is best done when everything is offline to users and yet is during business hours so that one can coordinate with vendors.

Really big places may have redundancies in place so that faculty may not see the changes.  Smaller places will not have those redundancies and one doesn't have to be all the way down to Super Dinky to be small enough to need a full week shutdown.

Faculty who are merely end users without knowing the IT aspects are not good judges of what is reasonable or necessary.

Taking the LMS offline for 2 weeks straight at any time is unacceptable, imo. It would cripple all of our efforts to prepare for the spring, to wrap things up from the fall, for students working on incompletes over the break, etc.

That's a faculty view.  What is necessary for the IT/network needs and when is a better time for a lengthy shutdown?

You haven't seen outrage at completely unacceptableness until you've lived, as we did last January, through being forced to give up our Macs and were completely without computer access for several days as full-time computational scientists on deadlines.  That was a true computer security need trumping literally all work. 

Shutting off access during the holidays to somewhat inconvenience faculty who just want to get ahead seems pretty small compared to other computer sagas that rose to extremely necessary, especially when given almost two months notice to make alternate plans.

Citing something else unreasonable does not make this example any more reasonable. It just suggests both are unreasonable.

[Parasaurolophus]

I think I give up on online discussion sessions. (Edit: I mean synchronous discussion sessions. The discussion boards aren't working too well either, but I think that's because I tied them in to our synchronous "discussions".)

I need to figure something else out, because what I'm doing just isn't working with the students I have. I have one or two per class with whom it clearly could and would work, but it's not working with any of the others, which makes it not work with the ones with whom it would work, either.

[FishProf]

I've hit the wall, bounced off and hit it again.

Then the wall hit back.

[mamselle]

I've hit the wall, bounced off and hit it again.

Then the wall hit back.

Ouch!

Sounds like too many repercussions.

In other news, I seem to have hit an "I don't wanna-not-gonna" wall.

So much to do.

So many Jeremy Brett movies to pursue...

M.

[Dimple_Dumpling72]

I've hit the wall, bounced off and hit it again.

Then the wall hit back.

+1