Blogger Outage During Finals Week Rattles Some Students and Professors

May 13, 2011, 5:39 pm

For more than 20 hours this week, Google’s free Blogger service suffered an outage that temporarily removed some posts and prevented the posting of new items. That glitch came at a tough time for some professors and students who rely on the service for class blogs, as students were kept from posting final class projects.

I was one of the professors affected. I co-teach a journalism course at the University of Maryland at College Park as an adjunct, and we set up a class Web site using Blogger, which students in the course are invited to join so they can post their multimedia assignments. Today happens to be the deadline for final projects, and starting last night frantic e-mails began pouring in from students unable to post their work. What’s worse, it appeared that some assignments uploaded in the past few days had vanished.

Google posted a message on Twitter last night noting the outage: “Thx for your reports. To fix issues stemming from our maintenance last night, @Blogger is going back into read-only mode. Updates to follow.”

We asked students to use a different free service to turn in their assignments—YouTube, also owned by Google.

It took until about 1:30 p.m. EST for Google to restore the service. “What a frustrating day,” wrote Eddie Kessler, a manager for Blogger, on a Google blog this afternoon. “Here’s what happened: During scheduled maintenance work Wednesday night, we experienced some data corruption that impacted Blogger’s behavior,” the post explained. It said some posts were temporarily removed and that “those are the posts that we’re in the progress of restoring.”

Officials from Google could not be reached for further comment.

Google deals with hundreds of colleges and universities that use its free tools as official campus communication services, including the company’s e-mail service. Blogger does not appear to be included in that program, called Google Apps for Education. Nevertheless, many professors use the free Blogger service to set up class blogs.

Some, including Jim Groom, an instructional technologist at the University of Mary Washington, have argued that free Web tools can serve as a replacement for course-managements systems such as Blackboard. Blackboard has added a blogging feature to its service, but Mr. Groom and others say that using free tools is easier and helps students become familiar with an interface they can use for other purposes.

Any technology service can suffer outages, of course. And as my colleague joked, “What are you going to do? The services are free after all.”

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http://www.facebook.com/todd.ide Todd Ide

The issue is that Blogger STILL ISN’T FIXED OR BACK. I can not access my
Dashboard, NOR is my blog with student book reviews (for children’s lit
back). That one is still giving me either an error code or a message
saying the blog doesn’t exist.

Blogger has not responded in any way to any of the numerous posts I have
left in their forums (the ONLY way you can contact them that I have
been able to find). I am NOT the only one with this issue. I am more
than willing to think about cloud computing and free apps to improve the
educational experience, but (and I can not believe I am saying this)
CMS providers offer customer service, ways to contact, back-ups, etc.
that Blogger apparently doesn’t, and Blogger (ie Google) does NOT REALLY
SEEM TO CARE (as evidenced by their lack of response to the many users
like myself who lost their work and material).

Beware before considering Blogger (one of my former favorites, which I must now look for another blogging service).
http://twitter.com/meg_stewart Meg Stewart

It was never real clear what the big fuss was about, this Blogger outage. It’s a drag but isn’t that the case with technology, it sometimes does stuff we wish it wouldn’t do at really inopportune times? If a student is writing a blog post for a grade, ideally that student is composing first in something else (Google Doc, Word, email, etc), so there’s a digital record. The chances of the student sending a professor a frantic email, distressed that “Blogger ate my homework” ought to negligible, if the faculty member has done his or her own instruction of how to use technology. When the “free” service goes back up in 20 hours or whatever, just re-post. I’ve seen Blackboard go down too. But Blackboard is 1) way more expensive than Blogger, and 2) locked down and invisible to the outside world. And all the other non-pay alternatives out there will, in fact, go down at one point or another.

Re: Todd Ide…my blogger blog seems to be working at present. http://travelswithmeg.blogspot.com/2011/05/test-post.html
rhancuff

You mean free services available on the internet aren’t up 24/7 for people to use? What an outrage is this outage.
rhill41

I’ve had problems with WebCT, Blackboard, whatever system you put up there . . . well, except maybe Nicenet, reliable as a dray horse, bless its heart. Redundancy is the only answer. Or fatalism.
http://www.facebook.com/todd.ide Todd Ide

First, yes the service is free, however Google markets it, along with its various apps, as part of its services to schools and universities, which are paid for. And Blogger (aka Google) makes a lot of money off of ad revenue, etc. associated with Blogger.

Meg, I agree in a perfect world we would all back-up our work, however blogging is not, nor should it be, a traditional writing assignment that simply is posted on a blog. These are, and need to be, digital writing assignments that are done in the environment that you are posting to. Just as I don’t type up my response here in Word and cut and paste into this, I don’t do that with blog posts generally. Again, excellent idea and in a perfect world…but…

And no not all of Blogger is fixed (many are still at the point this story starts out at almost 5 days later with no answers or ideas forthcoming from the Blogger powers that be). Please see http://ustudentreviews.blogspot.com/ The site I created to post my student reviews. It was created and up Tuesday or Wednesday, now gone.

No one is arguing that CMS pay services are cheaper, but they do offer FAR better customer support and assistance then Blogger is. No one would argue that services don’t go down (free or pay). The issue is restoring these in a timely manner and the ability to get some answers when issues drag on.

This is also not a small issue. There are roughly 15 to 30 MILLION blogs (with countless more being created each day) in the US alone. Blogger hosts roughly 15 million blogs (again with many more being added each day see http://www.technoprimer.com/2007/01/blog-count-summary-of-number-of-blogs.html). Even a fraction of this number is significant in size. Can you imagine the hew and cry if Gmail, Google, Jing, Facebook, LinkedIn, the various research based social networks, etc. (all free services) went down?

Free services are free, but they do make money (or at least hope too at some point) off the content generated by its users. Given that what are its obligations to its users/content providers? I would argue at least a better system to resolve questions or to provide answers. I would just like to know, do I need to recreate the site, find a new host (which is the way I am leaning), OR will it be restored?
chriskox

Live by the cloud, die by the cloud.
rhancuff

How many of those 15-30 million blogs are active, and how many had three posts done somewhere in March of 2006 and nothing since? I agree that even a small percentage of 15-30 million is a significant number, but I’m not sure how free-sourcing your course equates to a problem for Google. If Facebook etc. go down, sure people will grumble, but I’m having trouble thinking of a similar scenario in which anyone could complain that they couldn’t get their work done because they were freeloading on third party platforms.

I like blogger and I know some people who use it for class projects (I’ve considered it but haven’t implemented it), and I can understand why it would be inconvenient to have it down, but acting like it’s some sort of service violation goes a bit beyond. It’s a bit like people complaining that Barnes and Noble closed early so they couldn’t read their magazines for free.
http://www.facebook.com/todd.ide Todd Ide

That is true, or could be extended Live by technology, Die by technology. Still frustrating
ychumanities

The chance that a student unable to post their final project by the deadline will send a frantic message to a professor is pretty close to 100%.
http://twitter.com/meg_stewart Meg Stewart

;-) Fair enough…they are students, after all.
vanandel

I don’t mean to diminish the current and immediate frustration of students and teachers (and others who use blogs for whatever good purpose blogs might be used. But what’s the first thing we learned in word-processing, way back in the WordStar days?

Always. Backup. Everything.

Or, with a nod to first principles in Chicago politics:

Save Early, Save Often.
w1y43401

Most free online services have a fine print “use it at your own risk”. As such, folks really cannot complain. If you don’t like the free service or it is not meeting your needs, switch to alternative tools.
mmcferrin1616

While I agree that there should be a fluid, organic nature to blogging as opposed to a traditional writing assignment, I can’t help thinking that grading the blog diminishes that substantially. Backing it up shouldn’t do much more damage to the nature of the process.
juliewhite

Accurate description of far too many. However, to be fair, as inlibrarian notes, sometimes this attitude has been adopted because it really is such a hostile environment and any kind of stepping outside the box is likely to result in some kind of negative repercussion.
robjenkins

Yes, you do.
rescomp

This is the most asinine piece I have read in the CHE in a very long time. So, all administrators are authoritarians, libertarians, or lumps. And you, sir, are a pompous, arrogant fool who has to rely on convenient, catchy labels in order to deal with people in your neat little, narrow-minded world. You have a lazy mind and I suspect this is evident in the quality of your teaching and research. In short, you are a fool.
barbarashell

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and suggest that you don’t have a very high opinion of administrators. I think it might be well to remember that many [most?] administrators in HE come from the faculty ranks. Is this the Peter Principle at work?
robjenkins

No doubt you’re right, Julie. But in that case, the Lump becomes an enabler as well. Is it possible that hostile environments like the one inlibrarian describes exist and thrive because too many spineless Lumps enable them? Who was it that said, “People generally get the kind of government they deserve”? I wonder if that could apply to colleges and universities, as well as to nations.
robjenkins

Probably.
v8573254

I does seem as though “they” put something in the water that a new administrator drinks; the shift rarely takes more than a week or two.
juliewhite

Yes, I take your point, Rob. But in these economically unstable times, it can be hard for people to step out of their comfort zone. I think it’s an interaction between individual choices and institutional/societal context.

That being said, nothing frustrates me more than colleagues who are Lumps. And I agree that they are NOT harmless. But unfortunately they are allowed to stay in their positions because there seems to be an assumption that they are.
juliewhite

Wow, how about some respectful dialogue? We chastise our students for not being civil. We have a responsibility to model civil behavior.
robjenkins

And by the way, Barbarashell, it’s not really accurate to say that I have a low opinion of administrators in general. I’ve been pretty clear in these pages about the type of administrators I admire (and tried to emulate when I was an administrator)–basically, those who respect and trust faculty members, who get out of their way and let them do their good work, who see themselves as facilitators, not dictators. I’ve known several administrators like that in my long career, but, sadly, I can’t say that they’ve been in the majority. Do you disagree?
robjenkins

I think that’s fair, misanthropic.
inlibrarian

I am doing my best to get out on my own terms, but honestly, it has crossed my mind that ticking someone off would get me out of here with a cushion of unemployment compensation.
jbarman

OK – IHE administrators fall somewhere on a continuum of effectiveness, and Mr. Jenkins has identified “lumps” as simply existing within an organization without adding much value.

Doesn’t this describe management at all types of organizations? Indeed, doesn’t it describe all employees regardless of whether they manage or not? I’d suggest that almost all employees add some sort of value – even if that value is inordinately small when considering their salaries or positions.

In sum, are IHE administrators any more lumpish than anyone else?
green_hornist

The only thing I would add to the conversation at this point is to observe that there are a good number of administrators working hard to make things better. Higher Education administration is one of the most difficult settings in which to make such progress, because there are so many impediments, opposers, and roadblocks everywhere you look.
isucetl

It occurs to me that Rob’s continuum of “authoritarians, libertarians, or lumps” applies to pretty much everyone in higher ed, not just administrators. I’ve observed as a faculty member myself that most–if not all–of my colleagues at any given institution fall into a fairly similar continuum. I’d guess that the relative percentages of people in any of the three categories stays pretty constant, regardless of whether we refer to admin, faculty, or other staff types.
ovpstaff

finally, a reasonable response. Thanks for stating the obvious: the continuum from ineffective to effective, from dastardly to saintly, from inhibiting to facilitating is a characteristic of any category of employee, including faculty members. Why, why, why is there this persistent desire on the part of faculty members to skewer administrators? Stop complaining, and if you think you can do the job better, do it!
11179102

Good thing Rob is writing about administrators and not Black Studies Departments…
guiones

I found this article very useful as a reminder of the motivations behind certain behaviors; it always helps me to consider why some people do what they do (or don’t do).
britcar7

How utterly insulting, misguided, puerile, and unnecessary is this column. What kind of contribution do you imagine yourself to be making to acadame, in general, or to your readers? And why on earth would the Chronicle publish it?
misanthropic789

I wasn’t attempting to defend lumps so much as pointing out that the three categories defined in this column are insufficient to categorize the vast majority of administrators. Just as most authoritarian administrators aren’t overtly trying to be evil (even if it seems that way to faculty, since we are all aware that a PhD in, well, anything, is of course excellent training for running an organization with a multi-billion dollar budget and extensive governmental reporting requirements), most seeming lumps are, in fact, modestly effective (if imperfect) administrators trying to get things done and failing to communicate well as to what those things are.

Yes, there are the ones who are coasting to retirement and really don’t care. But those are not nearly as numerous as one might expect, and occur in similar numbers to the faculty out there still teaching the same old dull lectures off type-writer written notes from 1985 while they wait for that last danged grad student to graduate so that they can retire.

My problem with this entire discussion and this entire series of posts is that they are broad stereotypes that do NOTHING to help either faculty or administration understand the other. There are authoritarian faculty (I had a student this semester tell me one of her other profs dropped her with no appeal after missing two classes, despite having contacted the prof the day of the 1st missed class to tell the prof she had been in a CAR ACCIDENT and was in the hospital, then following up with a doctor’s note), there are faculty lumps (see above example from a 2007 graduate seminar), and there are libertarian faculty, but if I were to claim that all faculty fell into one of those categories I would be vilified. Why is it OK to do that to administrators?
robjenkins

First of all, I’m not stereotyping anybody, because I haven’t talked about anybody in particular. I believe it’s perfectly legitimate, when dealing with large groups of people, to identify broad types or categories. I never said that similar categories couldn’t be constructed for faculty, nor did I say that ALL administrators fall into one of these categories–although, generally speaking, I do think it’s fair to say that most administrators either mostly do good things, mostly do bad things, or don’t do much of anything. That seems self-evident to me, and I don’t understand why it has evoked such vitriol.

As for this particular type, just look at all the posts above that say, essentially, “Yes, I know this person well.” It’s not like I’m making this stuff up. It’s based on 27 years of observation. Am I generalizing? Of course, of necessity. This is a 700-word blog post, not a 500-page book. Am I way off base? I don’t think so.

As to the question of what I hope to accomplish, I’m trying first of all to hold a mirror up to administrators who fall into this category, to let them know how the rest of us view them. Based on several of the posts, I’d say I succeeded at that. I also believe, as I said above, that faculty basically get the government they deserve. If an institution has more than its share of administrators who get by without making any real decisions, then the faculty are at least partly to blame for that situation–and, once they recognize it, they can take steps to change it.

Rob
tabtab

Rob, Thanks for the blog. I enjoyed it very much, as you may guess. I think the vitriol probably comes from those who worked under administrators who mostly did bad things — or, as some responders point out, replies from the defenders of those same lumps to the complainers. If your boss was good, or even just benign, then your ax to grind may be less than those who spent a career working for very poor administrators, by any impartial judgment. The bad ones also flock together when it suits them. Even though my judgement is not impartial in this case, I can still analyze abstractly. I would state, too, just so I am not written off as a chronic complainer, that I also reported to one of the best academic administrators I have ever seen at this same third-tier “major” institution where I completed my career. He could have easily been a corporate CEO or COO. A new President swept him out and hired a succession of two sycophantic but tragically inept lumps to fill the position.

While I grant that faculty can change some things in some cases, if the fish stinks from the head down AND has the clout and dirty tricks to remain in power, then the choices are to keep one’s head down or leave.
tardigrade

“Remember that the majority of administrators are making far less doing what they do for higher ed than they would make if they could get an equivalent job in a big company.”

Sentence corrected.

Just like the majority of adjuncts are “making” far less doing what they do for higher ed that they would in a tenure track position.
tardigrade

“There may be something about higher education that invites more of this type of behavior.”

The boom/bust cycle of term-based work, perhaps? The fact that the vast majority of problems (i.e. particular students) eventually go away if one waits long enough?
thia_m

“Simply put, The Lump doesn’t really do much of anything, whether out of sheer laziness or apathy or a desire not to upset the applecart or just an overdeveloped sense of self-preservation. The Lump is the administrator who never answers your e-mails. The one you rarely see except at meetings. The one who attends all the meetings but doesn’t say much. The one who, when asked a direct question, will hem and haw, dissemble and deflect.”

By this definition, do you mean The Lump Liz, editor of this nonsense who fires people who cause her to upset her applecart??? And if you are that passionate about this, shouldn’t you be defending Ms. Riley???
thia_m

Afraid to upset the applecart??? As in liz, the editor of all of this? Please. I’m sure this guy will be fired too, if he gets hate mail. OMG. People are upset! Fire everyone!
barbarashell

Im not sure. I have been a college administrator for over 25 years and during that time I have witnessed a great many inept administrators, but that didnt make them dictators. The problem, as I see it, is that they dont know if they are doing a good job, they just assume they are. They usually dont ask for feedback and professional development is seen as a weakness. What I see inbedded in your comments is that faculty need respect and that apparently most, if not all, do good work. That respect thing goes two ways and it must also be earned. I have supervised excellent faculty and I have supervised horrendous faculty- years in the classroom did not seem to make a difference. What I cant seem to get you to agree on is that there are good and bad administrators as well as good and bad teachers. In my view, neither have a corner on the market. One final point, as a senior administrator I can and do something about ineffective supervisors [aka administrators], whereas I cannot do much, if anything about ineffective [tenured] faculty.
robjenkins

Oh, I agree whole-heartedly that there are good and bad (and inbetween) teachers, just as there are good and bad (and inbetween) administrators. What people seem don’t seem to get is that I’m a faculty member, writing from a faculty perspective. (I was also an administrator of one sort or another, including department chair and dean, for 16 years, so I have some idea how administration works, or is supposed to work, or fails to work.)

Please note that, on the sidebar, there is an ongoing call for guest posters. I imagine the editors would love to have an administrator write a post about ”The Three Types of Faculty Members,” or whatever. It would be even better if that administrator would be willing to use his or her real name. Do you suppose there will be any takers? Or do people just prefer to call me ugly names anonymously? (Not you, barbara. You’ve been very civil, and I appreciate that.)
deliajones

How about a follow-up article on the faculty lump who functions much like an adjunct; that is, teaches, holds office hours, then goes home. (Most adjuncts do way more than that but are not expected/required to.) Some full time faculty do the same thing, for way more money, leaving all the work of the department and College to others.
profperf

Less true these days–there seems tobe a trend where some individuals spend a few years as faculty (often not long enough to stand for tenure) and then move into an administrative “track.”. BTW, those are the administrators, in my experience, who typically have the least respect for and understanding of faculty issues.
robjenkins

“Why, why, why is there this persistent desire on the part of faculty members to skewer administrators?”

Because it’s so much fun. Duh.

And I have “stepped up,” to quote aephirah. I was an administrator of one sort or another–including department chair and academic dean–for 16 years. Then I “stepped down” because, on balance, I prefer the work that professors do. Also, it’s more difficult to skewer administrators when you’re one of them.