[BB] Bb System Back up

The Blackboard system just came back up.  I have not received any word yet from them on the cause or whether things are stabilized.  But at least I can get to it again.

 

Bill Vilberg

305-284-3949 (work); 786-218-3052 (cell); 305-255-9138 (home)

 

[BB] Bb System Down (Network Problem)

Blackboard said there is a problem with some of the systems in their data center.  The best guess is that there is a network problem with one of their racks of servers.  But we will have to wait for more information.  Most of the systems are fine.  Some of the system, ours included, is completely down.

 

I especially appreciate the error message that comes up on your screen when you try to go to Blackboard right now.  Note how it says to (1) contact me and (2) explain what YOU might have done to cause the error.  Is that insulting, or what?

 

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, bill.vilberg@miami.edu and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

 

Bill Vilberg

305-284-3949 (work); 786-218-3052 (cell); 305-255-9138 (home)

 

[BB] Bb System Down

Our Blackboard system just became unavailable.  I am talking with them on the phone.  They are looking at the servers.  More to come...

 

Bill Vilberg

305-284-3949 (work); 786-218-3052 (cell); 305-255-9138 (home)

 

[BB] Blackboard Cleanup Process Announcement

This notice is being sent to the Bb mailing list.  It may or may not apply to you.

 

-----SHORT ACTION ITEM-----

 

If you have a Blackboard course site for a course that was completed prior to Summer 2003, and you still have students using it, you need to let us know before Wednesday, June 8.

 

-----COMPLETE EXPLANATION-----

 

We are beginning a project to clean up the Blackboard system.  The final phase will remove Blackboard course sites from courses that were completed more than two years ago.  For most of you this is not a problem.  In fact, you are probably wishing we would have been doing this all along.  But there may be a few of these sites that are still needed out of the 22,000+ sites that we will be cleaning up this summer.  Therefore we are going to do this in phases.  We will begin Phase 1 in two weeks.

 

PHASE 1:  On Wednesday, June 8, we will set the course sites of courses prior to Summer 2003 to "Unavailable."  That will mean that students will no longer be able to see or access those course sites.  All material will remain in the course sites.  You will still be able to access everything, including course statistics.  The only change will be that students will not be able to access the sites.

 

PHASE 2:  On Wednesday, June 15, we will send you instructions on how to save archive copies of your course sites onto your computer.  With an archive copy you can have us restore your course site to the Blackboard system, should you need it.  If you don't need the old material, you can ignore this step.  The archive has no value other than to do a restore.

 

PHASE 3:  On Wednesday, July 20, we will remove the course sites from courses prior to Summer 2003.  The course sites, all materials, and all statistics will be removed from the Blackboard system.  The course sites will no longer appear in your "All Courses" listing.  There will be no way to recover the content of the site unless you made and have kept an archive copy.

 

 -----ACTION ITEM-----

 

If you have a Blackboard course site for a course that was completed prior to Summer 2003, and you still have students using it, you need to let us know.  Courses that were in the UM registration system or were merged from registration system courses will be affected.  Special sites that we created manually will not be affected. 

 

 

 -----ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-----

 

HOW CAN I TELL WHICH SITES ARE GOING TO BE MADE UNAVAILABLE?

If you need to know in advance, go to Blackboard and click on the "All Courses" tab.  There is a "Course ID" listed for each of your courses.  Typical courses end with a three digit code that indicates the academic year and semester.  The first two digits represent the academic year.  All course sites with IDs that end with the following codes will be set to unavailable for students.

 

   1999-2000 academic year:  -000, -001, -002, -003, -004
   2000-2001 academic year:  -010, -011, -012, -013, -014
   2001-2002 academic year:  -020, -021, -022, -023, -024
   2002-2003 academic year:  -030, -031, -032

 

Special course sites that do not end with a semester code are NOT part of this project.  They will remain as they currently exist.

HOW CAN I TELL IF A SITE IS UNAVAILABLE TO STUDENTS?

Go to Blackboard and click on the "All Courses" tab.  Courses that are unavailable will say so after the course title.

WILL I STILL BE ABLE TO ACCESS THE SITES WHEN THEY ARE UNAVAILABLE?

Yes.  When Phase 1 is complete you will still be able to access the site.  You can get to it from the "All Courses" tab.  When Phase 3 is complete the course will be gone from the system and you will not be able to access it any longer.

WHAT SHOULD I DO IF I NEED TO ALLOW STUDENTS TO CONTINUE TO ACCESS ONE OF THESE OLD SITES?

Let blackboard@miami.edu or bill.vilberg@miami.edu know the course ID of the course that you need us to leave active.

CAN AN UNAVAILABLE SITE BE MADE AVAILABLE AFTER JUNE 8?

Phase 1, setting the sites to "Unavailable," is accomplished with a simple setting in the Blackboard system.  It can be manually reversed by us or by you and everything will be as it was.  This is unlike Phase 3 which cannot be undone.

Bill Vilberg

305-284-3949 (work); 786-218-3052 (cell); 305-255-9138 (home)

 

Public access to a course site

Here are some steps to follow if you want your course site available to the public.

1. Set up your course web site.
   
   
   1. Enable public access to the course site - Go to Control Panel > Settings > Guest Access > Allow Access: Yes. This is an overall setting. If it is not enabled, no other settings matter.
      
   2. Enable tools - Go to Control Panel > Manage Tools > Enable Blackboard Tools > check the Allow Guest box for each item. We don't use observers. They are used in K-/2 schools so that parents can observe their children's school work. Some areas, such as Communications does not have the Allow Guest Access box. Access to these areas is limited to members of your course site and this cannot be changed.
      
   3. Enable menu items - Go to Control Panel > Manage Course Menu. Click on the Modify button for each menu item that is available to students. Check the Allow Guest Access box to make that menu item visible to guests.
      
   
   
   
2. Obtain the address to your site.
   
   
   1. Get the "shortcut" - Click on the Logout button. Then click on the All Courses tab. Search for and locate the listing for your course site. There should be a Preview button for it. Right-click on the preview button and select the "Copy Shortcut" item.
      
   2. (Optional) Create a short alias for access to your course site - Go to snipurl.com and create an account, if you don't have one, by going to MYSNIPURL and then NEW USER. Follow the instructions. This is a free account. Remember your username and password so you can retrieve usage statistics later.
      
   3. Provide access - Create links to your site or send out the link.
      
   4. Test access - Using a different computer, and without accessing Blackboard, see whether you can use the link to get to your site as a guest.
      
   
   

Blackboard links between Master and Section sites

BE CAREFUL USING THIS. MESSING UP HTML CAN MAKE YOUR ENTIRE SITE UNUSABLE!

It can be helpful to students if there is a link between the master site and the section sites when an augmented site is created. This can be done through a permanent announcement. I was able to create these in the following way.

0. I had the WYSIWYG editor turned off. (I always keep it off. To turn it off go to Home tab > Personal Information and follow the links.)

1. I obtained the "internal course ID" for the master site and each section site. In the following example the master site has an internal course ID of _148745_1, section A2 is _137109_1 and section AC is _137108_1. I found these by locating a link to the course, right clicking on it, Copy Shortcut, and then pasting the shortcut into notepad. The Course ID is at the end of the URL.

2. I went to each of the section sites, created an announcement, pasted in the following, indicated that the type was HTML, and made it permanent.


You are currently in the web site for your section of CHM205. There is also a <a target="_top" href="/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=%2Fbin%2Fcommon%2Fcourse.pl%3Fcourse_id%3D_148745_1">CHM205 MASTER SITE</a> that contains material that you will need.


3. I went to the master site, created an announcement, pasted in the following, indicated that the type was HTML, and made it permanent.


You are currently in the MASTER web site for CHM205. There are also section sits for <a target="_top" href="/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=%2Fbin%2Fcommon%2Fcourse.pl%3Fcourse_id%3D_137109_1">SECTION A2</a> and <a target="_top" href="/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=%2Fbin%2Fcommon%2Fcourse.pl%3Fcourse_id%3D_137108_1">SECTION AC</a> that contain material that you will need.

Note the lack of http://www.courses.miami.edu in the URLs. This means that they will work no matter how the person came to the site.

Also note the user of target="_top" to keep the link from nesting within the current frame.

[BB] Summer and Fall course sites

I have added the Summer II and Fall course sites to the My Current Courses listing.

 

Bill Vilberg

305-284-3949 (work); 786-218-3052 (cell); 305-255-9138 (home)

 

[BB] Network problem details

EXECUTIVE REPORT:  I can now get to UM from home reliably.  I am unable to determine what the problem was.  It probably didn't effect any/many other people, whatever it was.

 

LONG BORING DETAILS:  I was unable to do so between 8:00 AM and 11:30 AM today.  Interesting that I could get everywhere else that I tried, just not to miami.edu addresses.  I called my sister-in-law in Pennsylvania and asked her to check UM from there.  It came up quickly, so I knew it wasn't that UM was down or under a data storm or anything.  Then I checked again to make sure that I could get to other places and I could.  I tried both .com and .edu sites, including FIU, since it is probably connected to the Internet similarly to our connection.  No problem getting anywhere but UM.  Finally I gave up and did other work.  When I checked again after noon I got on and it is responsive.

 

I have no idea whether the problem was Adelphia connecting to UM, UM allowing Adelphia in, or my specific address being blocked somewhere.  With all of the interfaces between systems involved in the Internet, it is impossible for me to determine where the problem lies.  And none of the service providers seems to have support in place to look into specific problems such as this.

 

Bill Vilberg

305-284-3949 (work); 786-218-3052 (cell); 305-255-9138 (home)

 

[BB] Network problems?

I am trying to work from home but am having trouble connected to servers at UM. If you are trying to use Blackboard and the www.miami.edu/blackboard address doesn't work, you can try www.courses.miami.edu or http://miami6.blackboard.com since they are other names for the same system.

I have no idea what the problem is, only that I can get to Blackboard, from home, using the latter two addresses but not the former.

Bill Vilberg

[BB] SafeAssignment - Original writing checker

As part of our test of this service 19 courses have created 42 SafeAssignments on the Blackboard system.  A total of 1,163 submissions have been evaluated, with 688 listed as non-draft submissions.  Of those 688 there were 55 (7%) with matching scores of 70%-100%.  I have heard from a number of instructors who found this service beneficial, both as an educational tool and as an enforcement tool.  The students on the Information Technology Advisory Board have voiced strong support for this service. The cost is just under $7,000 for the coming academic year and I have approval to spend that money. 

 

IF YOU THINK WE SHOULD NOT PAY FOR THIS LICENSE, NOW IS THE TIME TO TELL ME.  Otherwise I will processing the paperwork this week.

 

Bill Vilberg

305-284-3949 (work); 786-218-3052 (cell); 305-255-9138 (home)