LMS Crash, Are you Ready?
This morning I met with our district CIO, Darrel Huish. We talked about a variety of things, include some of his ponderings with how Blackboard ran, or did not run, during the first couple weeks of school. Those of us at Mesa, where we have the Blackboard labeled system formally know as WebCT, just breathed high sighs of relief. However, Darrel had a wonderful point today. Do faculty really have a “back-up plan” if IT goes down. It can (I firmly believe it’s only a question of when)! So how are faculty, especially distance learning faculty, prepared for that scenario? He was discussing that HR, specifically payroll has to be prepared for that scenario, so why not about faculty?
During this same discussion I was mentioning that I have very little sympathy for my colleagues who do not back up their materials. Computers are not new...we all should know better! However, this got me thinking about the specific method we are backing up materials. For example, of course faculty should back up their online course once it’s been constructed. However, if those learning management systems are down, there is nothing to upload that backup into. So now I’m thinking faculty also need to systematically save their “raw” materials as well. Most of us have the word processed documents of syllabi and assignment prompts, as well as even the drafts (or print outs) of quizzes and other assessments. The discussion with Darrel makes me think we need to get faculty thinking about systematically backing up these “draft” documents as well.
If you are currently teaching online and the learning management system you are using was definitely going to be down for at least three weeks, what would you do?
September 11 2007 | Posted in MCCCD
Commentary
hmm...yes, back-up plan. sure, all of us have stuff backed up; yes, we know better. but, how do we “back up” a discussion board we have planned? how do we “back up” a Bb quiz that’s due the night Bb explodes? how do we “back up” students logging into Bb to update their email addresses? yes, most campuses have things like ePortfolio to serve as a back up plan (where we can do some similar Bb-like things), but now i’m hearing that if all faculty who use Bb decide to have their “back-up” on ePort, ePort could fail due to the volume. then what?
also, because this kind of catastrophic Bb disruption happened so often and so early in the semester, it’s next to impossible to teach students how to get to the back-up plan. teachers take valuable class time (at least i do) setting students up in Bb, showing them around the site, showing them their homework, etc. although it takes time, i do it because i value Bb and use it extensively (especially in my online classes, for which i conduct face-to-face and online orientations). then, students are off working on assignments and getting things done--but, wait! Bb is down again. then i’m sending 50+ emails helping students who are freaking out. where am i to initiate that back-up plan, even if i had set up the entire class in duplicate places?
besides, where’s Bb’s back up plan?
v.
Good points Shelley! See my Plan B blog.... http://gwclearningtechnology.blogspot.com/2007/09/plan-bthe-hiccups-of-technology.html
As I read your post, I found myself thinking about backups on a larger scale, too...if I have to resort to a solution that does not include digital technology, could I do it? What sort of backup would I use in that situation?