Virtual Labs - Procedures, Time Lines & Expectations

Introduction:

This article is intended to document various Procedures, Time Lines and Expectations as it pertains to the Virtual Lab environment. In general these noted expectations were agreed upon between Campus Operations, Academic Services and the IT Department, years ago when the platform was first introduced and communicated at tht time, but with changes in workforce some of these expectations may have been lost along the way. While there have been some minor changes over the years, the general rules established at that time still remain intact and are documented below.

Details:

Below, I’ve described the process without providing any specific dates. I will create an example with dates lower to better identify a true example of how these Procedures, Time Lines & Expectations apply to a real world scenario. I’ll also link to any deviations that some programs may have from the normal standard based on pre-established Software or Faculty Requirements.

The “Real-World Timing” listed in each of this sections is based on this Scenario.
Pretend that you are a triOS Accounting Instructor, teaching the 4 week Sage 50 module for your Program. Your program is set to start on March 24, 2025 at 8:00 AM EST.

Day: Two Sundays Prior to a Module Starting
Time: Process Starts at 4:00 PM EST and takes a couple to a few hours to process depending on the number of instructors and modules to be processed.
Real-World Timing: Sunday, March 16, 2025 @ 4:00 PM EST

• Instructor access is provisioned for their upcoming module. Instructors receive an email with instructions on accessing their labs.

• This early access is provisioned to allow instructors to test their provisioned environment and to ensure they have enough time for preparation of the class.

• Allows instructor to test and familiarize the environment (Student Labs are a clone of the same base as your lab environment, pre-testing your environment can create a re-assurance that the environment will work as you expect it to for your students as you introduce them to the lab).

• If required, setup access to software inside the lab (Kroll, PS Suite, WinRecs, etc) - Note 1

Day: One Sunday Prior to a Module Starting
Time: Process Starts at 7:00 PM EST in preparation for Class the following day. The process can take significant time but has never exceeded 6 hours.
Real-World Timing: Sunday, March 23, 2025 @ 7:00 PM EST

• Student Access and Resources are provisioned.

• Students receive individual emails with instructions on accessing the labs based on their particular modules criteria.

Days: The length of the Module
Time: N/A
Real-World Timing: Monday, March 24, 2025 to Sunday, April 20, 2025

• Module Starts, Students are introduced to the topic, if first time through the lab they are introduced to the lab as well.

• Late entries continue to be enrolled and added to class daily, the following day for any enrollments from the previous day. This should be a rare occurrence, but is accounted for.

• Any issues with logging in to Guacamole/Web Interface, Access Instructions, provisioning errors, missing labs, etc can be addressed through ticket to the IT Support Team.

• See Note 1 below Concerning Software Specific Logins and account creation.

Days: The day of module completion through to the Friday after Completion
Time: N/A
Real-World Timing: Friday, April 18, 2025 to Friday, April 25, 2025

• This is the week after the module has completed. Proxmox based virtual machines are left intact, with data as is until the end of this week. 

• Students and Instructors can continue to login to the Lab Environments without any special requirements or requests.

• Instructors can request extensions for students with extenuating circumstances via IT Support ticket.

  • Extensions must be approved by the Campus Director/Education Manager prior to being processed by the support team.

  • IT Support will not process any extensions until the Campus Director/Education Manager have indicated their approval through Jira workflows.

  • If request is not approved in that time period, the lab will be purged and all data to that point will be lost and unrecoverable. 

  • Extensions are requested for up to 1 week at a time, and should not be requested for the same student more than 2 times for the same module.

Days: First Friday after completion of the module.
Time: Process Starts at 5:00 PM EST and takes a couple hours to complete
Real-World Timing: Friday, April 25, 2025 @ 5:00 PM EST

• System processes will purge any labs from Proxmox, access will be removed from Remote Desktop (Pharmacy Programs) for any students that have not been granted approved extensions. 

• Once started, this process cannot be stopped for any reason and will process all lab access that does not have an extension.

• So long as a student has an active extension their instructor will continue to have access to the environment to support their students.

Notes:

1. The IT Teams do not control any of the logins for software in use inside the Lab Environment. Usernames and passwords, or instructions on creating them for your students should be found in your Academic Resources, either in Brightspace or your Instructor Guide. If you are uncertain of these user names or passwords or how to create access required for your students, you can work directly with your Faculty Head/Program Coordinator for further instructions and assistance.

2. Supply Chain and Logistics work a little differently for their end date as their usage of Virtual Labs is limited to a single short module and the Labs are used for an optional project after the module is completed.

3. Pharmacy Programs based In-Campus at the Halifax Campus are taught in class and do not utilize resources in the Virtual Lab environment.

4. Health Information Management for CD-ED is not included in this process at this time.

5. Kroll, WinRecs and PS Suite are driven by a Centralized Database and the data within them is not purged, just the conduit that allows access to that data is purged.

6. There are Situations where an Instructor may not be de-provisioned and may have more than 1 Lab environment available to them. This typically happens when an instructor is teaching with Virtual Labs in quick succession of each other and when there are outstanding Extensions for previous students in place.