Educational Technology at IU13

Notice of upcoming OverDrive server maintenance

Between May 3 and July 28, 2022, OverDrive will perform server upgrades to enhance the performance and security of their systems. Upgrades will occur between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays and Thursdays and could impact service only once for approximately 60 minutes or less. Impacts to your users should be minimal.

Additional details:

• Users will still be able to sign in to your digital collection and browse or read titles, but may encounter errors when attempting to borrow, place a hold, or return titles during your maintenance period.
• Please contact your Account Manager with questions.

Update regarding OverDrive video

Last year, OverDrive acquired Kanopy, a leading streaming video service. While Kanopy is currently for public libraries, colleges, and universities, we are exploring opportunities for K-12 partners in the future. In the meantime, OverDrive is preparing to wind down the OverDrive video format. All OverDrive video titles will be removed from your collection on September 1, 2022.

Additional details:

• Once OverDrive video titles are removed from your collection, any users with active checkouts on OverDrive video titles will be able to enjoy the title through the end of the lending period.
• All videos uploaded as Local Content through OverDrive will also be removed from your collection on September 1.
• We recommend removing any MARC records for OverDrive video from your library's catalog. If you receive MARC express records, we can create delete records upon request.

Upcoming Webinars

Summer and winter breaks are almost upon us and there’s no better time to revisit Sora and explore ways to keep students reading even when school’s not in session. Bookmark their Upcoming Webinars page now to stay up to date with our current offerings and learn about what’s coming next, such as Sora Essentials on May 10th at 3 pm EST, World Literary Tour: Spotlight on OverDrive's Spanish-Language Catalog on May 11th at 11 am EST, and Sora Connections: Making the Most of Your School Breaks on May 26th at 3 pm EST. 

With most student checkouts already happening in Sora, OverDrive will soon start the process of retiring the legacy OverDrive app and encouraging all students to use Sora as the primary app to enjoy your digital collection.

The first step will be to remove the OverDrive app from the Apple App Store, Google Play, and Microsoft Store starting February 23, 2022. At the same time, the download links for the legacy OverDrive desktop app for Windows and Mac will be removed from overdrive.com/apps.

How this initial change will impact users

• Current OverDrive app users (mobile and desktop) can continue to use the app.
• New users looking for the OverDrive app will be directed to Sora.
• All users can continue to use, borrow, and open titles from your school’s .lib.overdrive.com OverDrive website via a browser until we begin further migration to Sora.

What happens next
Your school should actively promote Sora and remove references to the OverDrive app from school websites and promotional materials. In future phases, we will encourage OverDrive app users to switch to Sora, with a goal of moving most over by the end of 2022. We are committed to supporting a smooth transition for you and your students and will send you updates on the plans and timing for the eventual retirement of the OverDrive app.

Learn about Sora with step-by-step short, informative lessons that are part of OverDrive's free self-paced trainings: Getting Started with Sora - for Educators and Getting Started with Sora - for Students

Pick and choose the features and lessons you’re interested in, and complete them in any order you like. Modules are unique self-serve learning experience that includes a variety of media such as text and images, videos and audio, knowledge checks, links to additional resources and other interactive blocks. 

This year, OverDrive has added the Sora for Classrooms and Curriculum self-paced training module to help educators explore the use of Sora’s flexible reading tools for lesson planning, curriculum development and more.  At-a-glance, K-12 staff can discover how Sora’s features connect to classrooms and curriculum with this editable chart.

OverDrive's Big Library Read launches on November 1st. This year's title is Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards is available to all IU13 districts for sim-use checkouts until November 15th.  Marketing materials, such as flyers, social media posts, and images to promote to high school students and teachers can be found here.

As of September 30, 2021, the web certificate provider Let’s Encrypt no longer supports certain older operating systems. Certificates from Let’s Encrypt are relied on for secure connections for websites and apps including Sora and OverDrive. As a result of this change, the following is now in effect:

• Sora’s minimum iOS version is now iOS 10. To use Sora on an iOS device, users are required to update their device’s operating system to iOS 10 or newer. These are the steps to help iOS users update their operating system version.
• The legacy OverDrive for Mac desktop app is only supported on macOS versions 10.12.1 through 10.14.
• Users on legacy web browsers may experience issues loading sorapp.com and should upgrade to a newer browser version, if possible.

The expectation was that affected users would receive a security warning after the Let’s Encrypt change, but we’ve since learned that a warning is not always displayed. Users may experience issues with signing in, borrowing, loading the app’s content, etc.
For more information and troubleshooting tips, check out Sora Help and OverDrive Help. If you have any questions, please contact your Account Manager.