SUBJECT: Important Update on Access to UM Technology and Teaching

Dear Colleagues, 

The university IT team is working around the clock to restore services as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience as we navigate these issues. Please find below the latest updates regarding campus IT. Dean Amy Finley is sending a separate message to students regarding this update.

• Faculty and staff can now authenticate (log in) to Gmail, Canvas, Salesforce, 25Live and Dropbox. Wolverine Access and Banner are still not available at this time. As a result, UM-Dearborn will resume all online, online sync and online async tomorrow, Tuesday, August 29. 

• The internet is still down on campus. Please bring any electronic materials to campus either on a personal/university-owned device or a flash drive to ensure you will be able to access them in the classroom. You also have the ability to access the Internet on campus using your phone’s “hotspot” feature, if available. 

• We highly recommend that faculty download and log into the Canvas app on their phone (Android download for Teachers or Apple Download for Teachers) in case there is another service interruption today or in the future. The Canvas phone app only requires a login one time, so it is a good idea to have the app downloaded and logged in. The same advice applies to students as well (Android download for Students or Apple Download for Students).

• We encourage faculty to use the Announcements area of each of their courses to let students know that Canvas and Gmail are now working along with providing updates about the classes and the semester. It might be helpful to ask students to reply to the announcement to confirm they received the message so you know who and who is not receiving updates. 

• Because of the ongoing technical issues the normal automated publishing of Canvas course shells did not occur this morning (for those courses not yet published) The plan is for the campus to have all course shells published tomorrow (Tuesday) morning to give students and faculty the most complete access possible. If you need to make any final adjustments to your course content before it is published, please do that as soon as possible.  If you would like to make your course available to students immediately, you can click the green “publish” button on your course home page.

• Staff should contact their supervisors to discuss work arrangements for tomorrow. 

Again, thank you for your patience and for everything you do. I realize this disruption could not have come at a less opportune time and I am sorry for the added stress and difficulty.  I will continue to keep you updated on this evolving situation.
 

With all best wishes,

Gabriella