How can you support your students if CI Learn is offline?
CI Learn (Canvas) is the campus’s learning management system (LMS), a cloud-based service provided by Instructure. While outages are rare, they can impact our campus and the broader CSU system. Use the following guide to maintain instructional continuity during an outage.
Alternative Ways to Support Your Students
Most teaching at CSUCI is designed for asynchronous access, meaning students engage with materials on their own schedule. If an extended outage occurs, consider these alternative communication and delivery methods:
- Campus Email: Use your class roster from CI Records (available within myCI) to send urgent updates or distribute time-critical learning materials (like PDFs or assignment prompts) via your campus webmail account.
- CI Docs/Google Drive: Host course documents on CI Docs and share the folder link with your students. This ensures they can access essential readings even if the LMS is unavailable.
- Zoom: If you have a scheduled class session, Zoom remains a reliable way to meet synchronously, as it operates independently of the Canvas infrastructure.
Preparation and Planning
While the service is down, use the time to draft content locally (Word, Google Docs) that you can later copy into CI Learn “Pages” or “Assignments.” Saving your materials to your computer or OneDrive ensures you always have a backup ready for quick upload once the system is restored.
Finding Out When CI Learn is Back Up
- Instructure Status: View the global Canvas Status page for wider regional outages.
- Campus ITS Service Status: Check the ITS Status Page for real-time updates on campus systems, including CI Learn and myCI.
- CSU Systemwide Updates: For major incidents affecting all campuses, refer to the CSU Canvas Incident Reports.
Contact & Support
- Faculty Support: For pedagogical advice or help with academic technology, Contact Teaching & Learning Innovations (TLI) or email tlinnovations@csuci.edu.
- 24/7 Canvas Support: Use the Canvas Support Hotline at +1-833-816-6632 or the Live Chat found within the CI Learn “Help” menu.
- Student Support: Students experiencing technical issues should be directed to the ITS Solution Center.
