[ARCHIVED] Quiz for 200 students

[lxl35]

Hi, 

I teach a course with about 200 students. I had a quiz set up on Canvas and had my 200 students take it at the same time. Canvas crashed and only let about 10 students in. Even for students who got in, there were problems with figures not showing up and crashes in the middle of the exam. all sorts of the problems. Put my students under significant stress. 

I asked a canvas technician if this is a problem with a large number of students logging in the same quiz at the same time. He said canvas can take unlimited number of students, which i do not believe. Does anyone have similar experience? If so, what was your number? i am trying to figure out the critical number (that Canvas does not admit) that would not crash the system so i can design my next exam strategically. or decide not to use Canvas for exams at all for a large class. 

any insights / experiences are appreciated!

Li

[rmurchshafer]

Li Li,

Were the students all in the some location or separated?  From what I know of Canvas I don't think the limitation would be with it, but rather could have been a shortcoming of the network your students were attached to while taking the exam.  I'm not saying it couldn't have been Canvas, but as a cloud application with millions of students across the world accessing it all the time, I can't see 200 students taking a quiz having that much of an impact on the system as a whole.

Rick

[lxl35]

Rick,

Thank you for your reply. All students are from their home as our university has switched to online teaching during the pandemic. What do you mean by “shortcoming of the network your students were attached to while taking the exam”? And are there remedies for this? We will be online teaching until the end of the semester so my final will still be online. thanks a bunch!

Li

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[rmurchshafer]

Li,

What I meant is that if you were meeting face to face in a classroom with everyone using a wireless connection; that could have been the issue if the wireless infrastructure was not sufficient in that classroom.  But since you were not meeting in person I don't think that is the issue.

I was just checking out the Canvas Status web page at Instructure Status and see that there were some disruptions today and possibly they coincide with when you had issues.  I know that Canvas is ramping up some systems because of increased demand and some of that extra demand could have caused their "long load times" issue today which might have affected your exam.  But I still stand by the notion that 200 students taking an exam at once should not have caused the problem given how large a system it is already.  I think/hope that your experience today was just to do global demand on Canvas which they are addressing.

Rick

[lxl35]

Thank you, Rick. The time lines recorded in their systems about when it crashed and when it recovered did coincide with the time of my exam. It was recorded that around 6:22 pm the system crashed, 7:05 the system partially recovered, and around 7:22 it recovered. My exam was scheduled to occur at 7-8:30. My zoom record shows that around 6:20 some students have started to try to test access for quiz; 7:05 is the time I told students that I will send them an exam copy. Around 7:20 all students have started working on the version I sent.

Glad to know that canvas is working on addressing higher demand. The class has a final exam in early May, which I originally planned to do it on canvas. After yesterday’s accident, I don’t know if I should still plan on that. In any case, thank you for your insights.

Li