Week 9: Troubleshooting 3rd-Party Software

Image Credit: @successrebellion 

Well... I guess it is that time of the semester when most of my time is spent fixing problems. Such is the life of an online instructor. I have learned over the years that no matter how hard you work to make sure everything works properly, something will go wrong. I always feel bad for students when they hit these unexpected bumps. I really work hard try and find solutions for students, but much of the time, the third-party software issues are out of my hands. So, during the week, there was a strange glitch with the virtual lab program that I use in the course. It is developed and managed by a publishing company that has nothing to do with my college.

Where is the Problem? 

Something that I have learned that takes much more time than I ever thought it would is just simply finding out what the problem is. Is the problem something the student is doing? Is it me because my instructions were not clear? Is it internet connections, software, or even 3rd party problems? Establishing the cause of the problem in the online setting can be more time consuming than it really should be. The online instructor must really pay attention to what is going on.

In this situation, the first student contacted me saying that they were shut out of working on the lab. Basically, she was working on the lab and it just shut down. The student wanted to know what to do. So, I did a quick check of the virtual lab program and it worked fine for me when I logged in. So, after making that check, my conclusion was that she must of had an internet issue from her provider. So, I addressed the student on what to do. But, then, I started getting more questions from students about similar issues at different points in the virtual lab. So, now it is a pattern. Something is not right, but when I log in, it is perfectly fine on my end and everything works. At this point, I contact the support in the virtual lab. Their response is that everything is fine.

Image Credit: 9gag

Well... what do you do in this case. Everything is fine on my end. Everything is fine on the 3rd party side of things. But.. clearly students (about 10%) are having issues. This is something that does not occur a lot, but as online instructors we really need to think about it and be prepared for it. One of the things this program has taught me is not to worry about "glitches" or "issues". We take is one day at a time and one problem at a time. I posted an announcement asking students to report any issues they have to me and to the virtual lab support. My thought is.. if they contact me... I have a running tally of the issues so I can look for possible patterns. Also, if they report these issues to the virtual lab site... the company has the information to look for the issues on their end. I asked students to report to me what the issue was, what browser they were using (even though all the browsers typically work) and various other information if they had issues.

To make a long story short, the 3rd party software did have an issue, but the issue was intermittent and on the side of the student accounts (not on the faculty and administrator side of the virtual lab). So, to all those people who serve as the "checks and balances" of the programs were not having the issues.

This is an example of where a group of people have to come together to find where the problem is. If I, as the instructor, did not try several things and ask for extra information, I could just have assumed the issue was the internet connection of the individual students and just told them to try again.

I decided to discuss this as the main aspect of my reflection this week, not only because it took a lot of my time (unexpectedly), but to point out a couple of other things...

• No matter how prepared we are, we still need to be on top of everything we do. We must check in on all aspects of our online courses and make sure things are properly working. Checking link and resources at the beginning of the semester is not enough. We must work constantly and with our students... checking and double checking. No one, that actually taught an online class, has ever said the job was easy. :D 

• Even when we do all the things we need to, things will unexpectedly happen and we need to take care of those things. It is important we stay caught up on our work and responsibilities, so that if the unexpected happens, we can still deal with the problems while still be ahead of schedule.

• We must also seek more information than we think we may need. We (my class and myself) were able to identify a problem because we all asked questions and collected more data than we thought we needed to find out if there was a problem. This solved the problem for our class as well as others who may be using the program in other classes and at other schools. 

• By involving my students, we got to be analytical about the situation. Almost like we were applying some steps of the scientific method to the problem. Obviously it is not "real science" but in the end it allowed the students to apply some scientific approaches to finding a solution. And... guess what... that is one of my learning outcomes for the course. haha. Students got a little extra "experience" for that and it was totally unplanned. I guess this is my attempt at trying to find the good in everything.

While all of this may seem very trivial to the reader, it took up a lot of my time and my students time to figure out the issues with the technology. It was such a large component of my week, I just thought I would reflect on it. 

The Course

Comic Added to an Announcement to Remind Students of the Upcoming Due Date.
Image Credit: P. Williams - made with ToonDoo

As for the course itself, everything is moving a long smoothly (other than the bump we discussed above). We are finishing up the second week of the third module. Students are doing really well in the course and I am pleased with their hard work. I am still posting announcements and general messages of encouragement. Starting with the next module, I will be sending out a class survey. This survey will give the students an opportunity to provide me with feedback on things that are going well or not going so well. They will also be able to tell me if there is anything they need from me or if I need to provide something I am not already providing. I look forward to sharing what the students say... but that will be in two or three reflections from this one. 

Wow... on to Week 10.