Canvas shutdown causes class disruption

by EMMA KINGKEO

Associate Editor

On Monday morning, students and professors were unable to access Canvas after a widespread Amazon Web Services outage caused the platform to go completely offline. 

As the central learning management system for course materials and assignment submission at UMW, Canvas is integral in maintaining class schedules and activities, as well as accessing texts needed for studying and contacting professors. With its services down, students were unable to study effectively or complete essential coursework. 

“I’m thankful that my professors have been accommodating and have moved due dates and stuff back—actually, some of them have sent me assignments, or the week schedule, so I can still access them,” said Sierra McKinley, a junior creative writing major. “But not everybody does that.”

Associate Professor of Communication and Digital Studies Elizabeth Johnson-Young was one professor who did so, after being contacted by students requesting assignment descriptions and other materials to be sent directly to them.

“I got a few [emails] that I needed to send some assignments to them because it was in Canvas. But thankfully, that was manageable,” she said.

However, many documents are only downloaded on Canvas for students and professors alike. With midterm season continuing this week, Johnson-Young was unable to access the study guide she had prepared beforehand for her class. 

“So that is a lesson I’ve learned to not do again, so that I have access to it outside of Canvas,” said Johnson-Young.

A service advisory from Chief Information Officer Jonathan Piersol was sent out via Outlook at 10:34 a.m., notifying the UMW community that the Information Technology Division was aware of the issue and monitoring it to the best of their ability. 

“Our IT team is actively monitoring the situation and coordinating with vendors to assess and mitigate any impact on campus services,” said the email. “While the issue originates outside of UMW systems, we will continue to provide updates as more information becomes available from AWS.”

Instructure, the company in charge of developing Canvas, released status updates throughout the day and indicated that Canvas was accessible to most users at 7:16 p.m., and confirmed full accessibility for all users by 7:45 p.m.

Many professors changed to last-minute plans for the day, and many students were forced to rearrange their study schedules. 

“I feel like it stresses everybody out because people put in time blocks each day to do their work,” said McKinley. “Like, for me this afternoon, I was going to work for three hours, and I couldn’t work. And so now the rest of my week, when it’s busy, I’m having to find time to put everything together.”

Some students, like junior anthropology major Emma Greer, weren’t affected as much due to the structure her classes follow. 

“We definitely follow syllabi that are posted on canvas and everything, but most of my classes are discussion based, and it’s done through readings that we have physically printed, like books and things and so it’s really not something that’s super reliant on Canvas,” she said.

However, for students that rely on Canvas for the majority of classes, the outage proved to be disruptive, emphasizing how dependent UMW and other schools have become on the platform for academic instruction. 

“I mean, it’s been a lot. I’ve had Canvas shut down before, but it’s been a couple hours and it’s not every single school,” said McKinley. “It’s just very unfortunate, but I know everybody’s going through it.”