BYU-Idaho students looking for answers as tech woes remain - East Idaho News
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BYU-Idaho students looking for answers as tech woes remain

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REXBURG — Although many of its systems were coming back online Thursday, Brigham Young University-Idaho’s public response to its technology troubles is frustrating students.

On Tuesday, BYU-Idaho announced a campuswide internet outage and problems with its login systems for both students and faculty. It’s not clear what caused the problems, and so far, campus leadership has largely left students and staff in the dark about what happened and how long it will take to be fixed.

At the moment, campus leadership says the investigation into the outage is “ongoing.”

The school sent a general update to staff and students, saying that student and university information integrity remains a top priority.

RELATED | BYU-Idaho experiencing massive internet outage

“We recently identified an incident affecting some BYU-Idaho computer systems,” an official university notice sent Wednesday reads. “The impacted systems were immediately isolated, other systems were turned off as a precaution, and an investigation was launched. Since then, we have been working diligently to bring them back online.”

The notice also explains that faculty have been asked to be flexible and ensure that grades are not impacted by the disruption.

What is know about the outage is that it impacts the server that does authentication to log into campus services, including Canvas, which the university uses as its online learning platform. Many students and staff have had issues accessing email, on-campus internet and Zoom.

Hundreds of students have taken to social media asking what happened and how to navigate the situation. Their concerns are not just related to getting assignments done.

“So do we have to worry about our information being compromised, then?” Nate Jensen, a BYU-Idaho student asked on the school’s IT Facebook page. “Like, do I have to change passwords or inform credit companies that my info might be compromised?”

BYU-Idaho officials have not given a response to such concerns and told EastIdahoNews.com the only available information is the official notices already given to students and staff.

“I would just rather they say, ‘Hey, this what happened,’ rather than just keeping us in the dark,” Jensen told EastIdahoNews.com. “Why would they investigate if it was just a power outage?”

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