News for Faculty and Staff

Teaching Faculty, we need your input. Epson is discontinuing the document camera model that is currently installed in most campus classrooms (ELPDC05), so we are in the process of selecting another model for future use.

The two models we are considering are listed below and are available for your use and testing:

Tired of staring at the timer as it loads new Lotus Notes messages to your iPhone? Download the latest version of Lotus Notes Traveler 8.5.1. Unlike the ultra-light version, this new product automatically, and immediately, pushes mail to your iPhone. No more waiting.

Now you have yet another reason to brag about your iPhone (as if you needed one).

Grant Hall (GRA), home to many Fine Arts students and faculty, now has some wireless Internet connectivity on the 2nd floor, around the areas shown in the photo.

Two new wireless devices provide coverage in the GRA 246 computer lab, GRA 244, the north side of GRA 239, and to offices nearby GRA 230. Up to 20 customer connections can be handled by each wireless device.

Wonda Yuhasz, WebCampus Coordinator, prepared a Fall 2009 WebCampus Report which details the upgrades that were completed before the semester began in August, as well as the outages and upgrades that followed four weeks later, during the second week of September.

You will find that the root causes for the outages have been identified and that more enhancements to the system are planned for the future.

The recent issues with WebCampus were caused by a software bug deep in the Oracle database that stores all the content contained in the course management system. It took quite some time to eliminate all possible causes and many conversations with Oracle and Blackboard (the WebCampus vendor) to uncover the problem. The repairs were implemented September 19 & 20th and appear to have eradicated the issues. 

As of 12:08 am (PDT), Sunday, September, 20, 2009, the issues with mail delivery in WebCampus have been resolved.  All mail that was sent while WebCampus was available with limited functionality has been delivered.The search and backup features are not available at this time.

Even though WebCampus is up and available, there is a known issue with WebCampus mail messages not being delivered at this time. Other alternative ways of communicating with your instructor is via email outside of WebCampus or via the discussion tool (if it has been enabled in your course).We expect the mail issue to be resolved around 5 PM on Saturday, Sept. 19th.

As with many operating system upgrades, there are sometimes disparities in the release of the new operating system and the full support and compatibility of the applications and systems you need to use. It has recently come to our attention that some key applications on campus are not fully compatible and supported with the latest release of Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard.

We continue to experience database issues with WebCampus.  OIT staff have been working around the clock since the difficulties began to identify and fix the problems and to provide data to Oracle and WebCT technical staff who are also working around the clock to assist us in determining the root cause of the problems.

We are doing all we can to keep the system up while we affect repairs however, the nature of the problem is making it difficult to keep the redundancy that is built into the system viable, causing the frequent outages.  We will try to keep the system up throughout the day.  We are planning an emergency extended maintenance period for sometime tonight.  The time for that maintenance period has not yet been determined.

The WebCampus service is currently available.

OIT continues to work with the manufacturers, Blackboard and Oracle, to find a solution to the overall, recurring problem. 

While always a good idea, it is even more strongly suggested during this time to save your work often and not to wait until the last minute to complete WebCampus activities.