Kaitlyn Richards ‘29
News Editor
Millions of students and educators across the nation rely on Canvas, the learning management system to keep university courses running smoothly. Through the platform, teachers can easily communicate with their students through assignment reminders, announcements, and grades in one centralized location.
On the morning of Monday, Oct. 20, that habitual routine came to an abrupt halt. After Holy Cross students returned to what they believed would be their normal campus life following a restful fall break, they were met with the message, “Canvas is experiencing issues due to an ongoing AWS incident.” Soon after, students learned that a major Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage had occurred, and all services run by the company, including Canvas, were completely inaccessible, leading to digital chaos on college campuses nationwide. Other AWS platforms, such as Snapchat, Venmo, and Lyft, were inaccessible for use due to the national outage.
While the glitch continued to unfold, students grasped just how dependent technology has become on an effective education. Later in the morning, Students received an email from the college’s Information Technology Services (IT) which explained that “Amazon reports that they are working to resolve the issue” but that they were unsure as to when the outage would be resolved. This caused even more panic for students and teachers alike.
The Canvas outage did not solely affect the students at Holy Cross, but across the country, students from other universities faced similar challenges as the outage caused panic as the courses are dependent on the AWS platform. At large institutions, to small schools, students reported that the inability to access coursework was the primary reason for stress, as the material is essential to all study efforts.
At Holy Cross, “the Canvas outage was very stressful for me and my friends, as we had many assignments to do that night but we were unable to complete them,” said freshman student Charlotte Kerrigan. “I thought that the outage would be resolved quickly, but that was untrue and the service was impeding my ability to complete coursework for the entire day,” Kerrigan stated.
Many students shared similar frustrations either on campus or through social media, as they had lost access to the readings required for the following day’s classes, upcoming assignments, or even study materials for midterm exams. Professors quickly adapted, emailing their courses with attachments of the readings, assignments, or the slides for the lectures which made it easier for students to stay on track.
By the evening, the IT department sent a message to all campus community members to inform them that the issues involving the AWS services had been resolved, therefore Canvas was accessible again, but the students’ stress continued. Many still had to complete all assignments that evening before midnight in order to avoid late penalties, or due to exams the following day.
Although the outage was only a temporary inconvenience, its impact was deeply felt across the Holy Cross community. The incident only emphasizes the daily reliance on technology to complete assignments, through the use of online platforms such as Canvas, which was quickly disrupted. While professors managed to recover and communicate with their students, everyone was reminded of the need for flexibility and preparedness in our digital academic society.
Image is credited of https://www.class.com/integrations/canvas-by-instructure/
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