When technology gets sick

I am not a luddite. Sometimes though, technology pisses me off. I teach a graduate course on Academic Libraries and part of the course delivery is through WebCT, an online course software. That was for you Auntie Annie. Last week my course disappeared, at least from the student perspective. I was happily oblivious and had no idea until students started contacting me. This may not have been a crisis if it hadn't happened during the last few weeks of the class. Anxious students were concerned that they wouldn't have access to course materials so that they could study. Knowing that even though they have an open book final many of them would appreciate being able to see the course lecture notes and to ensure that they have all the appropriate readings.

Thanks to several of my more technologically advanced colleagues, I realized that a wiki would work in the interim until the course returned. (which it still hasn't) In any case this serves as a real world example of how commercial products frequently don't work as promised. The IT people responsible for the program are scratching their heads and have been very good about providing updates. As in, "we still don't know what happened but we are working on it," and "this has never happened before," and "WebCT isn't supposed to do that." My friend Jane has frequently critiqued ALA for using commercial products when open source programs can do as well or better. In my current situation I have to concur. My class wiki is functioning as courseware and so far my class doesn't seem the worse for wear.