PROVO — No college professor in the social media age would buy the raggedy old excuse, "the dog ate my homework."
On Thursday night at BYU, business strategy major Preston Alder stared at his laptop and seriously considered whether he could risk trying to sell a next-generation, data-based excuse: "The university's computer servers chewed up my digital answers to your quiz."
Many students experienced trouble meeting deadlines for online homework as the first week of fall semester ended Friday with some anxiety over the stability of BYU Learning Suite, the school's online learning management system. Learning Suite crashed Thursday along with a number of university websites.
Several systems worked only sporadically, if at all, through the night and into Friday afternoon. The outages made it hard for a professor to load a syllabus, update an assignment or post grades. The crash also kept students and staff from clocking into and out of campus jobs.
Alder, 23, a junior from Mesa, Arizona, paused Thursday night when, between outages, he managed to open Learning Suite. He was afraid to try to open a quiz he needed to take for his class on the economics of strategy.
"I thought Learning Suite might freeze and the quiz might close for good without giving me a score," he said. Alder opted not to open the quiz. He was relieved when he later learned the quiz isn't due until Tuesday.
BYU spokesman Todd Hollingshead said a hardware failure in a core data system triggered a cascade of failures across campus.
"We've had outages and slowness on different websites affecting a significant portion of campus," he said.
Some students took to Twitter to blow off steam.
"My professor just got on LS to email us, but I'm still out," wrote Hayley Brooks, 20, a junior from Denver majoring in English Language. "This is a #nightmare. At least it's not the end of the semester...?"
Brooks, the assistant managing editor at the campus science fiction magazine, Leading Edge, turned literary for another tweet, paraphrasing Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice."
"It is a truth, universally acknowledged," she wrote, "that a #BYU student in possession of homework must be in want of BURNING #LearningSuite FOREVER."
She wanted to get ahead in her accounting class on Thursday but couldn't take a post-class quiz or access any learning materials. Her roommates stressed out when they couldn't access the reading they needed to do for homework and other assignments they had due on Friday.
"It was frustrating for everyone because we knew that if it came back online before 10 p.m. or so, we would be held accountable for assignments despite the outages," she said. "Most professors are pretty understandable, but some aren't. That was probably the biggest issue I saw."
Brooks also had trouble Thursday signing in and out of her campus job as an editorial assistant at the Humanities Publication Center. The computerized time sheet system, Y-Time, didn't immediately log her clock-in or clock-out times, but it did save them and updated her work hours once the system came back online.
MyBYU, a customized, secure student gateway to online campus information and services, also experienced outages.
By mid-afternoon Friday, the BYU Office of Information Technology tweeted, "In the last couple of hours we have seen a lot of services come back up. While there is still much to do, things are looking more stable."
The IT office worked through the night to migrate data to other servers, restore services, stabilize websites and repair or replace hardware, Hollingshead said.
Some students and faculty aimed harsh criticism at BYU's proprietary Learning Suite system. Others expressed shaken confidence.
Alder said one professor sent multiple emails to his class when he was unable to upload assignments.
"I think he was worried he was coming across as unprepared," Alder said.
Hollingshead said the system would be stable with the resolution of the hardware problem.
"It's the first week of school and this is certainly a significant situation to work through," Hollingshead added. "We're working as fast as we can so students can get their assignments and do their homework. We appreciate their patience. I understand some became frustrated when they couldn't do their homework. We appreciate their understanding."
By Friday evening, the IT office tweeted that it was close to completing its work.
"Systems are becoming more stable by the minute. Almost everything has been moved off of the hardware that was having issues."
Brooks cheered.
"I hate to think of what would happen if Learning Suite were down for any longer than it was," she said. "I would like to say that I'm impressed with BYU OIT in all of this. From the email they sent out this morning, it looks like they were working well into the night on the issues."
So she headed back to Twitter.
"Y-Time is fully functional," she wrote. "@YLearningSuite seems to be working again... I don't know about you, but I'm pretty happy! Thnx @byuoit!!
Email: twalch@deseretnews.com