Student Update: IT services disruption and recovery, Wednesday 21 February

The following Student Update was communicated to students by email on Wednesday 21 February 2024. 

Dear students, 

Can I take this opportunity to thank you all for your patience as we continue to work through a period of intense recovery to restore our crucial University systems and services. Please rest assured that the staff team is doing everything we can to try to minimise further disruption.

By way of a short update, just to keep you informed, I’ll outline some of the key things we are working on to ensure that your teaching and learning experience isn’t impacted too greatly by these unprecedented circumstances.

Firstly, can I just say that, whilst we are endeavouring to restore systems quickly, sometimes the service might be intermittent as we navigate our way through the recovery process. Please bear with us and keep trying if a system shows signs of faltering from time to time.

Canvas Access 

We are aware that some staff and students are experiencing difficulties with accessing the system so please do reach out to your module leader or ASK for assistance with this. Please turn on your notifications to ensure that you receive information from your module leaders.

Teaching

A mix of online and on-campus teaching will continue until the end of this week and specific details will be sent to you by your module leaders, tutors and lecturers through Canvas today. You will not be able to check-in your attendance during this time but we will discount missed check-ins from your overall attendance record.

We are currently anticipating that the mix of online and on-campus teaching will continue into next week. However, a further communication will be sent to you on Friday confirming teaching arrangements for next week.

Assessments

For electronic assessments submission due this week, module leaders will be sending you details via Canvas on submission dates and how to submit. Please ignore automatically generated notifications from Canvas related to assessment where they differ to what you have been instructed by your module leader.

All assessments that are scheduled to take place on-campus will continue as planned and module leaders will communicate directly around their delivery. Decisions on assessments due for electronic submission due next week will be announced later this week when we know more about what electronic submissions our IT services can facilitate.

On Campus 

Members of the ASK team will be available across all Campuses for any additional support and queries you might have over the next few days as well as Academic Coaches.

The Students’ Union advice centre is open as well as their social space, The Den. Welcome Desk and Student Voice staff are also on site to support students. 

Wi-Fi Access – Accommodation and Halls

Wi-Fi is not yet available across all campuses and students who are staying in University accommodation, please be aware that we are working on providing some short-term solutions for you until our Wi-Fi system can be fully restored. We are currently looking at installing temporary Wi-Fi systems which should be operational within the next 48 hours.

Health and Wellbeing

This has been a challenging time for the University community, so please do make use of our wider Student Support services if you feel you need some additional support. There is some useful information and contact details below.

Thank you all so much for bearing with us and we will continue to send you further updates as the recovery process continues.

Student Support 

Student Life is still available to support you. Please contact the teams below to access support in the same way as usual:

• Disability and Inclusion - disability-inclusion@wlv.ac.uk.
• Mental Health and Wellbeing - MHWenquiries@wlv.ac.uk or complete a registration form via this webpage.
• Support to study - supporttostudy@wlv.ac.uk or complete a cause for concern form via this link.
• Dennis Turner Hardship Fund - Money@wlv.ac.uk or for new applications, please see the Hardship Fund webpage.

Safeguarding and PREVENT - safeguarding@wlv.ac.uk or to log a new safeguarding or PREVENT concern, please see the Safeguarding webpage.

Please do include your student number and a summary of how we can support, or an outline of your concern within any email you send to our teams.

24-hour support via phone or online: 

The University of Wolverhampton has invested in a newly developed student support platform in collaboration with Care First called WLV Student Life Connect. This is a counselling, information and advice service offering support for issues arising at university, home, or work.

This is a FREE, CONFIDENTIAL, INDEPENDENT, and IMPARTIAL source of support for you, as an undergraduate, postgraduate taught, postgraduate research student, or an apprentice learner. Here you can access advice, guidance, and support on a wide range of care issues, health issues, benefits and entitlements, relationships, childcare, anxiety, depression and more. 

Please see the WLV Student Life Connect webpage  to find out more.  

Best Wishes,

Professor Gill Knight

Pro Vice-Chancellor Academic Leadership and Student Experience