Greetings!

With the inception of TheHub in 2002, we established two maintenance windows when TheHub was unavailable:

• Every Tuesday evening from 7-9 p.m.
• Every evening from 3-6 a.m.

The purpose of these windows is to perform necessary maintenance such as installing software and security updates, perform backups on servers, and occasionally upgrade servers.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

With all respect to David Bowie, “I still don’t know what I was waiting for…” Over the course of the last 14 years, many things have changed.  Our servers have been replaced and are faster. Our databases are more robust and allow some maintenance operations while they are in use. Our web servers can handle loads that weren’t possible in 2002.

In short, we don’t need the same amount of downtime to maintain TheHub that we did back in 2002.

New Maintenance Windows

In April 2015 we ended the weekly Tuesday maintenance window completely. We can accomplish much of what we need to do with users logged in and using TheHub. On occasion we may need to have a short maintenance period, but we’ll announce it in advance and we don’t need it every week.

New this month (June 2016), we are shortening the evening maintenance window to 3am-5 am. We hope that this offers more support to those who like to work earlier in the morning. Likewise we will continue to re-evaluate our processes and look to further shorten or eliminate this window in the future.

What is auto-save?

Auto-save is a feature you’re probably used to from Google Docs and other online sites where the content of your pages is automatically saved every few seconds or so, even without having to click the “Save” or “Submit” button.   We’ve been meaning to introduce this to TheHub for awhile now, and finally had the resources to make this happen.

What is (and isn’t) saved on TheHub?

It’s important to understand what is and is not automatically saved on TheHub.  In short, TheHub is not automatically saving the entire form – there are a long list of reasons why this isn’t possible including error checking and data validation.  What is auto-saved is all the large text blocks – those large rectangles you enter several sentences or paragraphs into.  Student examples include your Draft Div II and III contracts (eg: “Overview”, “Goals”, “Plan”, “Multiple Cultural Perspectives”, “Advanced Learning Activities”, etc).  Faculty examples include Final Course Evaluations (eg: “Narrative”, “Cumulative Skills”, “Optional Comments”, etc).

It is important to understand that you must click “Save” or “Submit” on every form to ensure the entire contents are saved.  Auto-save will only save the large text blocks and nothing else.

When is this starting?

Auto-save will be introduced on TheHub at the start of Spring committee request period, around March 2016 for students and later in summer/fall 2016 for faculty.

How do I know it’s working?

Under each text block, you will now see a message such as:

Last saved at 02/14/2016 at 9:14:15PM

These will automatically update each 15-30 seconds as you type.  If you make no changes to the content nothing will change.  For example, this is a sample from a Div II Committee Request:

What is this?

Students’ privacy and how the college handles FERPA  is very important. Central Records has had a Privacy of Records form on TheHub for many years now and encourages students to complete this form to ensure their preferences are honored. These preference include if/when the college can speak to your parent(s) or guardian(s) about aspects of your work at Hampshire.

Starting in January 2016 students will be required to update the Privacy of Records form once per academic year (an academic year runs from June 1 through May 30).

Why is it changing?

In order to be in compliance with the ever-changing rules around FERPA the US Department of Education (DOE) requires colleges to notify students of their rights annually.  In order to have the most accurate and up-to-date information on your preferences, we are requiring students to update their preferences annually.

What is affected?

When you use TheHub and attempt to access any of the following forms:

• e-Checkin
• Search and Register
• Register and Drop

a check is performed to see if/when you last filled out the Privacy of Records form.  If you completed that form anytime after June 1st, you’ll get the page you expect. If you have not completed the Privacy of Records form since June 1st then you will be automatically redirected to the Privacy of Records form.  Upon completion of the form, you’ll be taken to your original destination.

Questions?

If you have questions about the policy, you should contact CentralRecords@hampshire.edu.  If you have questions around technical issues on TheHub, you should contact TheHub@hampshire.edu