Author: Jenny Spohrer

RESOLVED: Moodle Currently Unavailable

Update: Moodle is back up as of 6pm. LITS will continue to monitor.

Moodle is currently unavailable. LITS is working to diagnose and resolve this issue as quickly as possible and will update as soon as Moodle is back in service. Thank you for your patience!

Please contact the Help Desk with any questions or concerns: help@brynmawr.edu, 610-526-7440

MATLAB Licensing Updates

MATLAB (a programming language and environment for numerical computation, data analysis, visualization, and algorithm development) is moving to a named-account licensing model, which will change the options Bryn Mawr College faculty and students have for accessing it moving forward:

    • Anyone can get a free account to use MATLAB Online Basic.
    • Bryn Mawr faculty and students can now get an account on Bryn Mawr College’s new MATLAB academic teaching license to access the full suite of online features and install MATLAB on college-owned and personal computers. (Haverford students can get this access through Haverford’s license.)
    • We’ve left an older version of MATLAB that does not require an account installed on classroom and lab computers to minimize disruption, but faculty and students who need the latest version or additional toolboxes will need to get an account on the new academic teaching license.

Please see our MATLAB help guide on Ask Athena for more details.

If you have any questions or concerns, please stop by or contact the Help Desk (help@brynmawr.edu, 610-526-7440).

New Service: Zoom Scheduler for Appointment Booking

Bryn Mawr College faculty, staff, and students now have access to individual and team-based appointment booking through Zoom’s new Scheduler feature.

As with most online appointment-booking platforms, Zoom Scheduler allows you to create one or more booking pages that shows an individual’s or group of people’s availability for appointments. It can be used for both in person or online meetings: when an appointment is booked, Scheduler sends both parties a calendar invite with the in-person location or a Zoom link, depending on the type.

Get Help with Scheduler

Transitioning from Calendly to Zoom Scheduler

If you or your department uses Calendly (or another paid service) for online appointment booking, LITS recommends switching to Zoom Scheduler feature, which gives you the same functionality at no cost to your department.

Transitioning is a three-step process:

  1. Set up appointment booking in Zoom Scheduler. It’s okay to do this while you are still actively using Calendly; the two systems don’t conflict with one another!
  2. Find the places you’ve shared your Calendly booking links (in your email signature, on College webpages, on syllabi or Moodle course pages, etc.) and replace them with Zoom Scheduler links.
  3. Cancel your Calendly subscription and close your account.

You can stretch this transition over as many weeks as you need; however, if your Calendly license renews annually, be sure to cancel before your renewal date or shift to monthly payments to avoid unnecessary expenses.

If you need help figuring out how to recreate a Calendly workflow in Zoom, please schedule a Zoom Scheduler consultation with LITS!

New Zoom Features Coming Soon

We are delighted to announce that new features will begin rolling out to Bryn Mawr Zoom accounts in the coming weeks:

  • Everyone will get access to Zoom Scheduler, an appointment-booking app for in-person and Zoom meetings, including team appointment bookings like next available round robins.
    • Individuals and departments who subscribe to platforms like Calendly or Book with Me may want to migrate to Zoom Scheduler but can wait until it is convenient to do so.
    • LITS will provide detailed migration information and support starting in May.
  • Faculty and staff will be able to host Zoom Webinars with up to 500 participants in addition to Meetings with up to 300 participants.
  • Note you will need to log into the Zoom web portal to access these features. (The Zoom desktop and mobile apps have more limited features and the integrations with Moodle and Outlook are designed for Zoom Meetings only.)

There will be no downtime and no change in how Zoom Meetings work.

Please contact the Help Desk at help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440 if you have questions or concerns.

Changes to Moodle Login Interface 9-10am on 2/26/24

LITS will be upgrading the Moodle login system for Bryn Mawr users on Monday 2/26 from 9-10am.

These changes will only impact the login process for Bryn Mawr users. Haverford logins will not be affected, and there will be no downtime or impact on the performance of Moodle itself.

For a brief period during the upgrade window, you will see an additional “Bryn Mawr test” button on the login screen when you log into Moodle. Once we have finished testing this new system and it is working correctly, we will remove the old option and this will become the “Bryn Mawr” button. The login screen you see after clicking that button will look slightly different, but function identically.

Bryn Mawr users experiencing difficulty logging in during or immediately after the upgrade window should wait a few seconds, clear their web browser’s cache, and try again.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Help Desk (drop-in at Canaday Library, help@brynmawr.edu, 610-526-7440.

Problems Scheduling Zoom Meetings through Outlook

We are currently troubleshooting an issue that is preventing some Outlook users from scheduling Zoom meetings through Outlook. Our system admins are troubleshooting this issue with Zoom and Microsoft support, but in the meantime:

If the Zoom option is still visible when you create an Outlook meeting, you are not affected and can ignore this notification.

If a Zoom option is not visible when you create an Outlook meeting, please use one of the following workarounds:

    • Use Teams for online meetings scheduled through Outlook. Teams is Microsoft’s native video-conferencing app and works the same way. You can include non-Bryn Mawr participants; participants join by clicking a link and do not need a Teams account or license. See Schedule a Microsoft Teams meeting from Outlook for more information.
    • Manually add Zoom links to Outlook meetings. To do this, you will need to schedule a Zoom meeting through the Zoom web portal, click Copy invitation next to the meeting link, and paste that information into your Outlook meeting invite.

Our apologies for any inconvenience this causes, and we hope to have a resolution soon. Please contact the Help Desk (help@brynmawr.edu, 610-526-7440) if you have any questions or concerns.

Potential disruptions to Zoom login on 1/29/24 at 4-6pm

Between 4 and 6pm on Monday, January 29, LITS will be upgrading the  authentication system for Zoom. You may be unable to log into your Bryn Mawr College Zoom accounts for brief periods during or immediately after this upgrade.

If you have Zoom meetings scheduled during this upgrade window, you can:

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Help Desk (610-526-7440 or help@brynmawr.edu).

New Accessibility Features in Moodle

Starting this semester, Moodle users may notice new accessibility icons next to course materials. These are part of a new accessibility platform called Yuja Panorama, which LITS and Access Services have integrated into Moodle in support of the College’s commitment to digital and course material accessibility, universal design for learning, and addressing structural barriers to equity and inclusion.

Help with accessibility: for technical issues or questions about Yuja, please contact the Help Desk at help@brynmawr.edu. If you have accessibility needs beyond what Yuja offers, please contact Access Services at accessservices@brynmawr.edu.

Panopto: Scheduled Maintenance 9:30-11pm on 11/2/2023

Panopto has announced that its cloud service maintenance scheduled for 9:30-11:00pm EDT on Thursday, Nov. 2 will involve a brief outage starting at approximately 9:45 pm and lasting up to 10 minutes.

The Panopto website, video streaming, and browser-based recording (Panopto Capture) will be unavailable during this outage.

If you need to record, use Panopto’s desktop app instead — it saves recordings in progress to the computer’s hard drive and will upload or resume uploading them to the Panopto site once it is available.

Contact the Help Desk with questions: help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440.

RStudio Server access ends 5 January 2024

LITS will shut down rstudio.brynmawr.edu, the college’s RStudio Server installation, on 5 January 2024.

Please download any R projects, files, or data on rstudio.brynmawr.edu that you want to keep before this date. LITS will not save any content stored on rstudio.brynmawr.edu before shutting it down.

If you use the RStudio IDE for data analysis, it will continue to be available as a free download from Posit, on classroom and public library and lab computers, and remotely via LabStats and Apporto.

If you teach with R, we have replaced RStudio Server with an institutional license for a cloud-based alternative called Posit Cloud, which LITS successfully pilot-tested with faculty teaching in the data science program last year. Posit Cloud has features designed explicitly to facilitate teaching with R that were not available with our local RStudio Server install, such as collaborative projects, shared workspaces, and easier student account creation. See our AskAthena article on Teaching with Posit Cloud for more information.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us via the Help Desk (help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440)