Stellar Updates

Announcing Stellar 2.2

jbink — 2008-08-25T15:47:28-05:00

We are pleased to announce the release of Stellar 2.2. This version of Stellar includes an improved gradebook, a more streamlined materials page, as well as database and hardware enhancements to improve performance. We are grateful to our users for their excellent feedback on new features. All Fall 2008 class sites have been updated to the latest version to enable new features. Over the next few weeks, there will be additional improvements to the Materials page and CourseGuide, as well as the survey tool.

New Features and Improvements

Visit the Stellar homepage for useful links to Library resources, a “Highlights Reel” of new features for this semester, training session schedules and a course selection application for students.

Announcing Stellar 2.1.1 Release

artish — 2008-01-22T12:31:59-05:00

We are pleased to announce the release of Stellar 2.1.1. This version of Stellar introduces an updated sectioning tool, flexible calendaring options, an improved gradebook, as well as usability and performance enhancements. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release and to our users for their ongoing support and excellent feedback.

All Spring 2008 class sites have been updated to the latest version to enable new features. Over the next few weeks, prior to the start of the Spring term, there may be additional improvements to the Gradebook, @Stellar, and CourseGuide, as well as minor bug fixes.

End-of-Term Stellar News, Fall 2007

artish — 2008-01-17T13:40:19-05:00

STELLAR COURSE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
End-of-Term News, January 17, 2008

Thanks for using Stellar. This is a reminder that all Fall 2007 academic sites will be made read-only, in accordance with our regular practice. If you need to keep your site open for further changes, please contact Stellar Help (note that nonacademic, or project sites, remain open independently of the academic calendar).

If you would like a Stellar site for Spring'08, please submit a request at http://stellar.mit.edu/SR/.

Touchstone makes you certificate-free

jbink — 2007-10-17T17:48:59-05:00

Good news for our MIT users who have long wished to be able to access their Stellar sites from any computer. You can now go certificate-free and login using your Kerberos username and password. This much-awaited capability in Stellar is made possible through MIT Touchstone, a web authentication solution developed by ISDA. If you are using a public machine, or a computer onto which you don't want to install your personal certificates, you can login using Touchstone and authenticate to Stellar using your Kerberos credentials.

Evolution of MIT Course Numbers

artish — 2007-08-21T18:55:49-05:00

While trying to unravel the mystery of the missing Course 19 from the list of MIT course numbers, we came across this very cool page documenting the history of course numbers at MIT dating back to 1868.

Benefits of Collaborative Tools

jtscott — 2007-08-21T14:00:04-05:00

In Fall of '07, Stellar 2.1 will be released with a suite of new collaborative tools that will build on the existing foundation of collaborative tools already offered by the Stellar platform. Let's take a look at Stellar's collaborative tools and see how you can benefit by making use of them.

End-of-Term Stellar News

artish — 2007-06-18T13:32:08-05:00

Thanks for using Stellar. This is a reminder that all Spring 2007 academic sites will be made read-only, in accordance with our regular practice. If you need to keep your site open for further changes, please contact Stellar Help (note that nonacademic, or project sites, remain open independently of the academic calendar).

Planned brief outage - Sunday, 5/6/07

artish — 2007-05-04T12:50:35-05:00

Stellar will be unavailable for approximately 2 hours, starting 11:00 a.m., on Sunday, May 6, 2007. In order to facilitate the process, we request our users to log out by 10:45 a.m. on Sunday, before our servers go down. While we sincerely regret the inconvenience, this outage is necessary to replace important hardware to ensure optimum performance and reliability.

We thank you for your patience and welcome you to contact us with any questions or concerns.

Thanks,
The Stellar Team

Planned brief outage - Sunday, 4/15/07

artish — 2007-04-13T20:48:17-05:00

Stellar will be unavailable for approximately 30 minutes, starting 1:30 p.m., on Sunday, April 15, 2007. While we normally avoid service interruptions, this outage is necessary to replace important hardware to ensure fast and reliable performance of Stellar.

We thank you for your patience and welcome you to contact us with any questions or concerns.

Thanks,
The Stellar Team

Brief outage

artish — 2007-04-09T10:35:12-05:00

Due to an unexpected database server failure, Stellar experienced a service interruption lasting approximately 30 minutes, 1:12 to 1:48 a.m., April 9th. We regret any inconvenience to our users and we are taking measures to prevent further outages.

Thanks,
The Stellar Team

Network Outage

artish — 2007-04-02T12:19:02-05:00

Monday, April 2, 2007
Stellar was unavailable briefly due to a campus wide network outage. We sincerely regret this unanticipated interruption and thank you for your patience. Please visit the System Status at MIT webpage for most up-to-date service alerts for major IS&T services.

Brief Outage - 3/15/07

artish — 2007-03-16T07:07:23-05:00

Stellar had an unanticipated outage lasting about 10 minutes, March 15, 11:45 to 11:55 pm.
We sincerely regret any inconvenience to our users and we are taking measures to avoid further service interruptions.

Thanks,
The Stellar Team

Expected Stellar Outage

artish — 2007-03-01T17:57:26-05:00

Stellar will be unavailable for several hours starting 5:30 p.m. on Friday, March 2, 2007. While we normally avoid any service interruptions, this outage is required to apply patches to our databases in preparation for the new Daylight Savings Time start date that takes effect on March 11th.

We will do our best to keep the outage as brief as possible and we regret any inconvenience this may cause. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.

Brief Outage - 2/14/07

artish — 2007-02-14T18:31:30-05:00

Stellar had a brief outage of approximately 10 minutes this evening, 5:21 to 5:36 p.m., Wednesday, February 14, 2007. The outage was caused due to the unprecedented load being experienced this semester and we regret any inconvenience this has caused.

Thank you for your patience while we investigate solutions to avoid recurrence. If you have questions or concerns, please send an email to or call Stellar Help at 617-253-1101.

Thanks,
The Stellar Team

Update on the Spring 2007 Release

artish — 2007-02-09T09:39:56-05:00

A quick update on the Spring 2007 release:

1. At semester start, Stellar continues to surpass all previous usage records. 558 sites have been created for this semester, with more requests expected -- already exceeding last Spring's final count by 47.

2. There has been a corresponding load increase on the Stellar servers. Maximum instantaneous user load increased 22% over previous highs, and peak average logins grew by almost 8%. More than 4,400 users accessed Stellar over the full course of the day on Wednesday, February 7. Regretfully, Stellar had a brief outage of less than 10 minutes Wednesday evening, which we do not expect to recur. Historically, Stellar has an excellent system uptime of 99.99% other than planned outages usually at times of low use.

3. We will be releasing a further set of UI updates on Monday, February 12, that will continue to improve the consistency of forms and pages. We would have preferred to release these changes a week ago but the volume of updates kept us from finalizing testing on this final round of fixes.

4. If you have any problems or concerns, please don't hesitate to send an email to or call Stellar Help at 617-253-1101. Our user support team has earned a 92% satisfaction rating on professionalism, timeliness, availability and expertise from our customers.

We value your comments, and now's the time to make feature requests for Fall 2007. Please email us suggestions or comments.

Thanks,
The Stellar Team