404 Page Not Found: How the Amazon Outage Affected Online Students

By Emma Wuthnow
Staff writer
Email: thehutchinsoncollegian@gmail.com

Amazon had an outage that affected multiple servers, like Hutchinson Community College’s Learning Zone, which prevented students, online and in person, from doing schoolwork, attending classes, and much more.

It was only a matter of time before everything was back to normal, but how badly did this affect students for the 15 hours that the servers were down? Students couldn’t access their classes in Learning Zone or send messages through Canvas.

“It definitely threw me off,” said Hugoton freshman Daniel Gonzalez. “I couldn’t get into Learning Zone to see what was due or turn stuff in, and it made it harder to keep up with classes. I ended up kind of guessing what I needed to do until everything came back online.”  While some instructors offered flexibility, others provided little communication.

“Some of my teachers were cool about it and emailed us updates or gave extra time,” Gonzalez said. “But others didn’t really say much. The support staff tried to help, but there wasn’t a whole lot they could do either.”

Students like sophomore Caleb Hays echoed those frustrations saying the outage created serious setbacks in their coursework.

“It actually affected a lot,” Hays said. “Staff were on me about getting things done, but I couldn’t even access what was due. I tried to stay caught up through email, but it was stressful.”

Hays, who is taking online classes such as medical terminology, said the outage made it even more difficult with a busy schedule between work and school.

“It was very, very stressful,” he said. “I don’t think the college provided much guidance. They should have emailed every student right away instead of the next day.”

Both Gonzalez and Hays agree that communication needed improvement if an outage happens again, which would make it easier on students and instructors to handle.

“They should have some kind of back up system, like another website or group email where teachers can post stuff if the main site goes down,” Gonzalez said.

While some students could use Google Docs to submit work, others like Hays weren’t so lucky.

“All of mine was online,” Hays said. “Everything I needed was in Learning Zone. It was horrible.”

Even though the outage was more than a week ago, some students had to face the consequences of it, whether it was struggling to get assignments turned in or trying to check grades to see if you passed a quiz.

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