WebCT Updates
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
With the introduction of Laurier's new Learning Management System (MyLearningSpace) in Fall 2010, WebCT services will be discontinued as of 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, August 31, 2010. All courses with online components will use MyLearningSpace (https://mylearningspace.wlu.ca).
Material posted to WebCT will not be available after this date.
Please direct any questions to myLS@wlu.ca.
Every Tuesday | 6:00 a.m.
ITS has determined that it is necessary to have a regular maintenance window in order to peform required regular updates for WebCT. The time chosen for this work is Tuesday mornings from 6 - 10 a.m. Please consider that on a regular basis, WebCT will not be available during this time.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
During the scheduled maintenance on Tuesday, December 1, one application server was taken down for maintenance and brought back to the clustered environment without issues. In the afternoon of the same day, to boost the capacity of WebCT, ITS tried to bring another application server on line that caused problems with response, between 2 pm and 3 pm. To rectify the problem, shutdown of the entire system was required. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 | 7:45 p.m. UPDATE
This message sent on behalf of Tom Buckley - Assistant Vice President - Academic Services
Good Evening
As was communicated earlier in the day, the ITS group was required to extend our regular maintenance window for WebCT. As of approximately 630 PM we have identified and addressed the root cause for this maintenance window extension. In order to complete the work we will need to synchronize WebCT class section enrollments with current Banner enrolment information and create new WebCT courses requested by faculty that have not been completed.
Step 1- synchronisation of current enrolment information - Technical staff are working on this now and we anticipate the work will be completed by 10pm this evening. Once this is completed, WebCT will again be available to faculty and students.
Step 2- Any requests for new WebCT courses made after 430PM on Friday September 11th will be added starting tomorrow morning. We anticipate this work being completed no later than mid-morning on Thursday. Courses will be accessible to students and faculty as they are added but it will take this length of time to deal with the entire queue.
I realise this extended maintenance window was a significant inconvenience for faculty staff and students. I do regret having to take this action today but it was necessary to ensure proper access to courses by students and faculty.
Through the summer months we have invested significant time and effort on the WebCT system. New servers were acquired to replace aging hardware and additional servers were added to ensure improved performance during peak times. We have also completed an upgrade to a more current version of the WebCT software. I realise that a day without access this early in the semester does not instill confidence that we have addressed all issues. I would ask your consideration that we have moved to a much more stable hardware and software platform for WebCT and will be making additional investments in this and other critical systems moving forward.
If you have an comments or questions please feel free to contact me.
Thank You and Best Regards
============================
Tom Buckley
Assistant Vice President- Academic Services
Wilfrid Laurier University
75 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada N2L 3C5
T: +1 519 884 0710 ext 4474
F: +1 519 746 2472
tbuckley@wlu.ca
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 | 1:15 p.m. UPDATE
WebCT/Blackboard has requested that WebCT remain unavailable in order to resolve issues that have arisen with the system. The system will not be available until 4 pm today. At that time, the system will be available or a further update will be provided.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 | 10:30 a.m. UPDATE
Please note that it is necessary to extend the WebCT maintenance window today until noon. We are planning for the system to be available again at noon today.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 | 8 a.m.
WebCT is unavailable for scheduled maintenance between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., on Tuesday, September 15, 2009.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 | 8 p.m.
As of apx. 4 pm today, all functionality within WebCT has been restored. The upload files problem has been resolved.
ITS has determined that it is necessary to have a regular maintenance window in order to peform required regular updates for WebCT. The time chosen for this work is Tuesday mornings from 6 - 10 a.m. Please consider that on a regular basis, WebCT will not be available during this time. This maintenance work will begin on Tuesday, April 14, 2009.
Thank you for your patience and understanding during the time when WebCT was experiencing difficulties. It was appreciated.
Friday, April 3, 2009 | 7:30 p.m.
WebCT is up again. The data has been moved successfully to the test server, which is now functioning as the production server. The uploading of files problem has not been resolved, but the environment is now stable. Attention is now turned to resolving the upload problem. Blackboard support is working with us.
Friday, April 3, 2009 | 9:30 a.m.
WebCT will go down today at 12:30 pm to continue the work associated with correcting problems associated with file uploads. The system will be unavailable until approximately 7 pm. A further notification will be forwarded to you when the system becomes available again.
Thank you again for your patience.
