Many students are taking hybrid or online classes even while on campus, and issues with technology have consistently disrupted online learning during the first week of the semester.

This summer, Information Technology at Purdue worked with campus partners to prepare for increased Wi-Fi needs and new lecture configurations. The team worked to reconfigure technology in 248 labs and classrooms, and added support to assist with remote teaching and learning in 315 classrooms.

Despite the preparations, the increased traffic in internet usage overwhelmed Purdue’s systems.

“The issues experienced Monday were not expected,” said Dwight Snethen, executive director of end-user experience.

On Monday, students reported difficulty accessing the Brightspace learning management system and other services that require BoilerKey two-factor authentication for logins.

In an email sent on Tuesday, ITaP said it was “cautiously optimistic that the BoilerKey authentication problems on Monday may be resolved” and would be continually monitoring issues.

“System engineers are monitoring the systems that manage user authentication … to ensure they can handle the volume and load,” Snethen said.

Issues continued to pop up, such as those surrounding Kaltura, the vendor that provides lecture-capturing services. As of Thursday morning, those issues had been resolved.

Login difficulties, lecture inaccessibility and power outages further complicated the transition to a new learning environment.

“I was in the middle of watching the lecture and … everything just stopped,” said Anas Abdul Baqi, a junior in the College of Engineering. “I mean if things weren’t online, I would still be in class right now, I guess.”

Daniel Hsieh, a professor in the School of Languages and Cultures, came back from sabbatical last year to a new teaching environment. Both of his courses are small, in-person classes.

“It’s a little bit of a hassle of course,” Hsieh said. “But so far it’s been OK, except there’s been some outages with the computer stuff.”

Because of the smaller class size, the technology issues haven’t disrupted Hsieh’s class. He said he can always resort to using a flash-drive to pull up documents.

“So far I haven’t been affected negatively,” Hsieh said. “But it’s always worrisome because you keep on hearing these things go out and they come back, and go out and come back.”

But Baqi believes the issues will be resolved in the coming weeks.

“Honestly, when there’s so many students all using at the same time, it kind of makes sense why things would run out,” he said. “And I feel like it’s just the first few weeks. I think it will change as things go on.”

Tech tips from ITaP

Snethen shared a number of suggestions to avoid or limit the effect of technical issues:

If you have trouble getting a response from a login attempt, wait a few minutes before retrying. Repeated attempts can cause additional congestion.

Try logging in before the start of class. High-demand times are at the top of the hour, especially 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.

Print out one-use codes for areas with poor signal. https://www.purdue.edu/apps/account/BoilerKeySelfServe

Get an Ethernet cable for uninterrupted connectivity.

If you are still experiencing issues, visit https://support.purdue.edu/goldanswers or contact the ITaP Customer Service Center at 765-494-4000 or itap@purdue.edu.