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)

Moodle Maintenance Requiring Downtime at 8am October 12, 2023

We will be performing maintenance on Moodle on Thursday, October 12 at that requires a brief service outage.

This maintenance will begin at approximately 8:00am and last no longer than 30 minutes. You may lose access to Moodle during this window and/or experience slow or unusual behavior.

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

Zoom Activity in Moodle Error Message

In order to fix an issue preventing some instructors from scheduling Zoom meetings through the Moodle Zoom activity, LITS was forced to recreate the Zoom-Moodle connection at around 10:30 am on September 5.

If you see an error message (OpenID Connect Initiation URI is invalid) when accessing a Zoom activity created before this date and time, please delete the activity and create a Zoom (new) activity to your course in its place.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience this causes.

If you have any questions, please contact the Help Desk (help@brynmawr.edu, 610-526-7636).

Moodle Upgrade Successfully Completed

Our upgrade to Moodle 4.2 is complete and the site is now online.

To learn more what is new/changed: 

  1. Take the user tour the first time you log in.
  2. Watch our video tour.
  3. Read a summary list of changes for teachers or for students.

If you need help:

Where are my old courses?

  • Courses from Fall 2020 to the present are still on moodle.brynmawr.edu.
  • LITS has archival copies of fall 2017-summer 2020 academic courses and can copy them into new Moodle shells for instructors on request.

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

FINAL REMINDER: Moodle Downtime and Upgrade August 14, 2023

Moodle will be down on Monday, August 14, 2023, while LITS completes the final steps of upgrading to Moodle 4.2.

Check out this video preview of the new interface!

The first time you log in after August 14, please complete the user tour to learn about changes to the Moodle interface. We will post links to additional guides and video demos immediately following the update. In-person support will be available by appointment or drop in to Canaday 315 on Monday, August 28, 10am-12pm and 1-3pm.

As a reminder, access to Moodle Archive ends on August 14. Teachers who want personal back-up copies of courses on this site must create and download them NOW. (LITS has archived back-up copies of fall 2017-summer 2020 academic courses and will continue to copy them into new Moodle shells on request after August 15.)

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

Microsoft 365 Accessibility Checker Now Enabled by Default

In support of the College’s commitment to accessibility, LITS has enabled Microsoft’s accessibility checker by default within college-licensed Microsoft 365 apps (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook). These apps are available to current students, faculty and staff online, on college-owned computers (including public lab computers), and on personal devices.

The accessibility checker works much like a spell checker, alerting you if elements in a document or email might be inaccessible and suggesting possible fixes, which you can often apply by clicking.

For more info, see:

Microsoft also offers online, self-paced training and video tutorials on making documents accessible.

For info about Microsoft 365 features that help you view, read and hear documents and email in more accessible ways, see Office 365: Immersive reader accessibility features (Ask Athena) and  Microsoft Outlook: Accessibility features (Ask Athena).

For more info on the College’s commitment to ensuring that all individuals, including individuals with disabilities, have equal access to courses, programs, and events, see Bryn Mawr’s Web Accessibility Policy, Accessibility Policy for Classroom Instruction, and Accessibility Policy for College Events.

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

Reminder: Moodle Downtime and Upgrade on August 14, 2023

Moodle will be down on Monday, August 14, 2023, while LITS completes the final steps of upgrading to version 4.2:

  • The Moodle interface will be updated, but content on moodle.brynmawr.edu (including fall 2023 courses) and that URL will NOT change.
  • Access to Moodle Archive (moodlearchive.brynmawr.edu) will end. Teachers who want personal back-up copies of courses on this site should create them ASAP. LITS has archived back-ups of fall 2017-summer 2020 academic courses and will continue to copy them into new Moodle shells on request after August 15.

Want a sneak preview of the new interface? Log into our Moodle 4 sandbox using one of these username (password) combinations:

  • Student view sample course — lpalpantine (SithLord!83) or dvader (IAmYourFather!80)
  • Instructor sandbox – okenobi (JediMaster!77) or lskywalker (JediRule!83)

We will provide details about the changes, video demos, and user tours with the upgrade and in-person support will be available by appointment and at a drop-in event on August 28.

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

Moodle 4.1 Coming this Fall

Before the start of the fall 2023 term, LITS needs to upgrade Moodle from its current version (3.11.11) to version 4.1.

This upgrade will require significant downtime for Moodle, but we are developing an upgrade process that we hope will be minimally disruptive as possible:

  • Moodle will be completely unavailable on August 14, 2023 while we perform the final part of this upgrade.
    • We have worked with departments hosting summer programs and orientations to identify this as the least disruptive date.
    • Departments should plan for full-day outage, but we will try to shorten that if possible.
  • Unlike in past major upgrades, we will not need to have two sites running simultaneously. This means:
    • The Moodle URL (moodle.brynmawr.edu) will not change.
    • We will not need to copy content from one site to another. Everything that is on Moodle on Aug 13 (including fall 2023 academic courses) will still be there on August 15.
  • Access to Moodle Archive (https://moodlearchive.brynmawr.edu/) will end on August 14.

Most changes to Moodle 4.1 are interface changes designed to make the site easier to use or incorporate add-on features (such as the collapsible topics course format) into the core software. We will post additional details in the coming months and provide advance demos and faculty and staff support options in August-September to make the transition as smooth as possible.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us via the Help Desk (help@brynmawr.edu, 610-526-7440) or schedule a meeting with a member of the Moodle support team.

 

New Zoom Join Meeting Experience

Zoom has streamlined the process for joining a meeting, so that participants wait for the host to start, preview their video, and enter the waiting room (if relevant) in a single window.

Currently, hosts can opt in to this feature for their meetings by:

  1. Signing in to the Zoom web portal.
  2. Clicking Settings in the left side menu.
  3. Clicking the Meetings tab.
  4. Under Security, sliding the New waiting room and join before host experience switch to the on (right) position.

During the opt-in period, participants who join using a Zoom desktop or mobile app version 5.12 or higher will see the new join meeting experience if the host has enabled it OR the old experience if the host has not. Participants using older apps will always see the old experience.

On April 22, this feature will become standard for all Zoom accounts. Participants using Zoom apps older than version 5.12 will be forced to update before joining meetings.

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

Resolved: Panopto Recordings Erroneously Archived

On January 11, we reported that we had discovered and fixed a configuration error that caused recent Panopto recordings to be erroneously archived — that is, to be placed in a kind of “cold storage” state that requires viewers and creators to manually “restore” or unarchive the recordings to use them.

We are pleased to report that Panopto has finished globally restoring the recordings that were archived by this error.

Moving forward, recordings will be archived once three years have passed since they were last viewed, as per our Panopto Service Policy. Unfortunately, Panopto does not yet have a mechanism for notifying creators before recordings are archived (this is a feature that we and other sysadmins have requested), but you can manually restore archived videos if needed after the fact.

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

Panopto Recordings Erroneously Archived

We recently discovered a configuration error that caused Panopto to archive recordings too early. Normally recordings are only archived if they haven’t been viewed in three years. Recently this error caused Panopto to archive recordings created and viewed as recently as a few months ago.

NO CONTENT HAS BEEN LOST. Panopto’s archiving process only puts recordings into a kind of “cold storage” state: you can still see them, but you must “restore” or unarchive them in order to view or edit them, and the restoration can take up to two days.

We have fixed the error that caused the problem and are working with Panopto to find a way to globally restore all recordings that should be available (i.e., everything but recordings that have not been viewed in the past three years). In the meantime, we thank you for your patience and ask that you please manually “restore” or unarchive recordings you need.

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