Educator's Guide

Internet and power outages

Writing in MATCHA normally requires an internet connection because text is sent through MATCHA servers to control writing speed. This is how unwanted copy-pasting is ultimately controlled. If internet access goes down, you can allow a student to continue writing offline by providing an outage code. An outage code can be obtained by scanning the outage QR code on a student's computer or by browsing the student's details in MATCHA Proctor.

Open MATCHA Dashboard Educator's Guide index

Outage procedure

If students lose connectivity during a writing session, a proctor can approve outage mode by providing an outage code. This allows students to keep writing locally while disconnected.
Proctors issuing outage codes should try to remain online using an alternate connection, such as cellular data. This ensures that MATCHA servers receive the outage approval. Until the proctor who issued the outage codes comes back online, documents produced during outages will not be accepted by MATCHA servers and .docx files will not be generated.
Important: Proctors should avoid reloading the MATCHA Proctor page if they have lost internet access, since it will not reload and they will lose the ability to issue outage codes. It is okay if the page is lost momentarily, as outage information is stored permanently in the browser.
Once MATCHA detects that an outage is over, it will reconnect to the internet and end outage mode. However, if several outages occur, it will stop trying to reconnect and remain in outage mode until the student checks out of the activity.

What students can and cannot do in outage mode

In outage mode, students can:

Continue writing, using all features of MATCHA except those that depend on internet connectivity.
Be checked out and check themselves out. Importantly, check-out is not communicated from proctors to students in outage mode, since this requires an internet connection. Students and proctors must each check out. If students continue writing after being checked out by a proctor, their submission will be rejected.

In outage mode, students cannot:

Check in.
Use MATCHA's AI assistant or other features that require a live connection to MATCHA services.
Generate a certified .docx file or submit their work. They must wait for internet access to return before doing this. Once checked out, it is safe to let students go home and send their document from there. However, submissions written partly in outage mode will not be accepted until proctors have reconnected to the internet and used MATCHA Proctor, which will automatically send the outage details once connected.