Attention eClass instructors,

UPDATE - Oct. 18th 2017 2PM: Continued investigation into the document conversion problems in assignment grading has determined that a replacement of the current PDF converter is the best option for long-term sustainability and server performance. eClass support has tested a new conversion tool which will be deployed by our hosting provider on Thursday October 19th 2017 at 8:00AM. This deployment is not expected to cause any interruption to service.

While this change should resolve the document conversion problems, some users may still experience a separate error that should not impact assignment grading (for more information see Problems Grading Assignments.) We are still investigating and working toward a resolution for that issue.

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UPDATE - Oct. 12 2017 4PM: Investigation into the assignment grading performance problems has revealed that the process that converts documents for PDF annotation fails periodically when it encounters certain document types/features and this failure halts the processing of all subsequent assignment grading across the site.

eClass support and the IST hosting team have attempted various fixes to alleviate this issue but nothing has succeeded. Until a full solution is discovered, the process that converts documents will be terminated manually by the hosting team if it runs over a certain threshold.

If you run into any issues grading assignments (your session stalls or you encounter errors) please see Problems Grading Assignments for more information.

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Some users have reported issues when using the assignment grading interface. These issues range from not being able to grade specific individual assignments to having problems logging back in to eClass.

If you encounter the latter problem and are having issues logging in, you may need to clear your session cache to regain access to eClass.

The eClass support team is currently working with our hosting provider to troubleshoot and resolve this issue. We will be updating this post as we make progress in our investigation.

If you have any questions about this issue, please contact us at eclass@ualberta.ca.

Regards,
IST eClass Support