Faculty, Staff and Students:

On behalf of our Learn@UW Executive Committee, I/we want you to know that we are taking steps now to improve the performance of Desire2Learn (D2L) systems at all UW campuses.

We are aware that many of you have experienced slow or delayed responses in D2L over the past few days. After D2L was upgraded to version 10 this summer, we noticed some occasional performance issues. Immediately, Learn@UW technical staff (the entity at UW-Madison’s Division of Information Technology that manages the D2L System) and D2L staff began working on solutions to improve performance. Later, Microsoft experts were engaged to help solve the problem.  Numerous patches to the system have been applied. However, these efforts have yielded only temporary success, and the root cause of these performance problems has not yet been identified. This is not uncommon in a complex environment like ours, but it is still very, very frustrating.

We will not tolerate this level of performance. While technical experts continue around the clock to resolve the issues, the Learn@UW Executive Committee is exploring alternatives. We are consulting with top D2L executives to determine what assistance D2L can provide beyond finding the problem and what viable alternatives exist.

We are confident that we are receiving the best attention possible from both vendors. Top leadership at UW System, Learn@UW Utility and Desire2Learn are engaged in this process.

As we work through this we ask for your continued patience, and we will continue to keep you posted on our efforts to restore the level of performance that faculty, staff, and students deserve.

Thank you.
Chris Clements, Chair
Learn@UW Exec Committee

Lorna Wong
Director, Learning Technology Development
University of Wisconsin System Administration

As of 1:00 pm on 9/6/12, the Learn@UW Utility is actively engaged with D2L and Microsoft experts for a solution to our D2L performance problems. All UW System campuses are experiencing slow D2L system performance.  As we wait for a resolution to the D2L issues, we have the following recommendations for you:

• Try to work during low usage periods, including early morning (i.e., before 9 a.m.) and in the late evening or at night (i.e., after 8 p.m.). Avoid the 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. time period whenever possible as this seems to be the highest peak of usage time.
• Draft your discussion messages in Word and copy/paste to D2L when you want to post. This strategy will save you from losing a message you draft in D2L in the event that D2L times out when you are submitting.
• Print Content items for the current week so you can still reference course materials if/when D2L is down.
• Ask your professor if it is acceptable to send assignments via email if you are unable to access the Dropbox. You can find your professor’s email address in the UW-W Directory (http://wp.uww.edu). Make a note of the instructor’s email address (and phone number if provided) in case you are unable to login and need to send a message.
• Save each answer when taking a quiz. This strategy will prevent you from losing your quiz answers, in the event that D2L times out at the moment you submit your quiz.
• Don’t wait until the last minute! Plan ahead and give yourself extra time to meet deadlines. Do not submit a quiz or upload a file to the Dropbox right before a deadline in the event that the system times out or takes longer than anticipated to process your request.
• View the Dropbox submission history to verify that your Dropbox submission was successful. In the Dropbox area, click the “View History” button.
• Check the D2L login page for news. Any information or updates we receive about outages or problems with D2L will be posted on the D2L login page.

We will continue to share any updates regarding the performance issues with you as we receive them from Learn@UW in Madison. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience at this time.

If you have questions, please email UW-W D2L Support.