On Oct. 20, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage caused widespread disruptions that left Elizabethtown College students and faculty without access to Canvas for much of the day.
Canvas serves as the college’s primary learning management system, providing access to class materials, assignments and grades. When the outage began early that morning, many students were unable to log in, submit coursework or participate in online discussions. The downtime lasted for roughly 15 hours before service was restored late that night.
The outage originated in Amazon’s US-EAST-1 data center, which supports a large portion of the internet’s infrastructure. It affected multiple industries, including education, finance and entertainment. At Etown, the shutdown temporarily paused academic activity across programs that rely on the platform.
For students in the School of Graduate and Professional Studies (SGPS), the disruption created particular challenges because of the condensed course format.
“The Canvas shutdown from AWS really affected my schoolwork,” SGPS studentDakota Freyser said. “As an SGPS student, I do all my work online and through Canvas. When I woke up and started doing my schoolwork, I couldn’t log in, and it seemed weird. Upon checking, I saw that the AWS shutdown was affecting Canvas. I couldn’t do any of my schoolwork that day, and having only a 5-week semester for classes makes the schedule just that more difficult, already balancing a job and an accelerated program.”
Freyser said that while the outage did not cause him to miss any immediate deadlines, he wished there had been earlier communication from the college. “I do wish that Etown had messaged us that something was wrong instead of having to go and try to find out about why Canvas wasn’t working,” he said.
Across campus, professors were also forced to make adjustments. Some pushed back assignment deadlines or rescheduled tests to accommodate the disruption. Several classes that relied on Canvas for quizzes or online exams saw those assessments interrupted, requiring instructors to modify grading plans or provide alternative options once access was restored.
An official statement was sent to the campus community around 1 p.m., several hours after the outage began. The statement acknowledged the disruption and confirmed that the issue stemmed from AWS.
“Canvas is currently experiencing a service disruption caused by a widespread outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS),” the message read. “AWS has reported it is working on a resolution but there is no estimated recovery time at this stage. Please note that other campus services may be impacted by the AWS outage. For the latest information, visit Elizabethtown College’s ITS Status page and subscribe for immediate notifications. Thank you for your flexibility and patience.”
By late evening, Canvas access was restored, allowing students to resume coursework and communication. No further updates were issued by the college after the system came back online.
The AWS outage affected a wide range of institutions across the country, including universities and companies that rely on the cloud service for data storage and website hosting. Many learning management systems operate through AWS infrastructure, which meant schools nationwide experienced similar disruptions to online coursework.
While the outage was temporary, it underscored the extent to which daily academic life depends on digital platforms and cloud-based systems. With coursework, communication and grading all tied to services like Canvas, even a brief disruption can ripple through schedules and deadlines across campus.
