When Technology Fails

Earlier this week Zoom had an outage that affected Duke users, among others. Though the issue was resolved, it was a reminder of the compounding challenges of this semester. Should you experience a technical failure in the future that affects your ability to conduct your course, here’s what you should do:

Step 1: Send an email letting your students know that the planned activity (class, office hours, etc.) will not be happening as scheduled. If you cannot access email but use Sakai, post an Announcement for students to see when they next access Sakai. 

Step 2: Explain how the missed content will be made up. Some options include: record a lecture video and post it online, create an activity students can do on their own or in groups, move the content to another scheduled class session, or post a Sakai discussion forum topic on the topic of the class.

Step 3: Adjust deadlines and due dates. If a technology failure impacts a due date or exam, share the new date. Give students flexibility to make up missed work if the new due date or exam date conflicts with their schedule.

Make and share your backup plan before anything happens. For instance, tell students that if a synchronous discussion is ever canceled, they should anticipate a text from you or a discussion forum activity posted at a later time.

To receive updates when a Duke-supported service is experiencing issues and when issues are resolved, subscribe to Duke IT Status alerts.