[BB] Warning - Archive your courses, please

I hate to report this, but there seem to be a serious problem in the Blackboard system that may cause all of your content to disappear or your course site to become completely unavailable, even to me.  I have only had it reported in two sites, so far, but Blackboard is unable to identify the cause and reports that they have seen it at other universities.

 

As a precaution I encourage you to go to the Control Panel of each of your courses and use the Archive Course link to create a zip file on your computer with everything in it from your course as it currently exists.  If anything happens we can use that backup to restore things the way they are right now.  If you are using the gradebook you should also go to it and export it so that you will have multiple copies of any grades you have posted.

 

 

I fully subscribe to Keller's ARCS model of motivation.  The four things that are necessary to motivate you to use Blackboard are Awareness that it exists and what it can do, Relevance to what you are trying to accomplish, Confidence both in the system itself and in your ability to use it, and Satisfaction after using it that it was worth the effort.  This problem is not helping with the confidence scores, but I believe it is imperative that you know about any issue that might affect your teaching of your classes.  I will continue to work with Blackboard to try to identify the problem and resolve it.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] My Current Courses update

I have set My Current Courses so that the courses from last Spring and Summer I do not show up any longer.  If you need to get to them, use the All Courses tab.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Strange behavior from Blackboard

I am seeing some very strange behavior on the Blackboard system.  One course site shows an error message instead of the menu bar.  Another course site seems to have lost all the content.  I have opened a case with Blackboard and they are looking into the situation.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Web encryption turned off

I finally found a way to log on to Blackboard after having set encryption for everything except the collaboration tools. I immediately turned off the encryption system wide. That will allow everything to work.

 

I will pursue the security configuration issues on our test box.

 

I would like lo point out that I have been trying to get this enabled for two years with nothing but problems. Blackboard says it works; I enable it; it fails to work; repeat.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Oops - I seem to have disabled login

It appears that a side-effect of getting chat and virtual classroom working is that we can no longer login. Not good. I am on the phone with Blackboard.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Chat tool and virtual classroom

It appears that the collaboration tools, chat and virtual classroom, stopped working last Monday. The workaround is for me to turn off security for those features. I have done that, so those features should be working now.

 

Once Blackboard figures out what is wrong and corrects it, I will turn on security in this area again.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] NEW: Performance Dashboard - shows last login

The Performance Dashboard is a powerful addition to Blackboard.  For example, it shows how recently the students in your web site have logged onto the server. (Note: logged into the server, not accessed your course site.)

 

Go to Control Panel > Performance Dashboard to bring up the report.  The report can be sorted by any of the columns; just click on the arrow at the top of the column you want to sort by. By sorting on the "Days Since Last Login" I was able to quickly determine that 163 of the 375 students in CHM 113 have accessed blackboard in the last two days.  As with most lists in Blackboard, you only see 25 students per page.

 

The page may take a few moments to appear.  It accesses the database extensively in order to obtain all the information that it displays. The problem we were having with it seems to have been resolved, so it should be working for everyone now.  If it isn't, please let me know.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Update completed

The update ran at 2:30 PM.  All the students, as of yesterday, should now be in your Blackboard courses.  Again, I apologize for the delay.  The people at Blackboard had changed some files without notifying us.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Update still pending

The snapshot update, adding the first year students to our system, is still pending.  Blackboard has not been able to determine what is causing the problem.  I will let you know as soon as this is resolved. 

 

I truly apologize for the inconvenience this causes.  I know how valuable it is to send a welcome notice to your students prior to the first class meeting and this is making that more difficult for those people with students new to UM.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Overnight update was not performed.

The overnight update was not performed last night.  That means that your new students are not enrolled, any merges that were scheduled were not performed, and any teaching assignments were not updated.  Everything was correct on our end.  I am contacting Blackboard to see what they can do..

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Service requests

I apologize if some of your requests have not been completed as quickly as possible.  If you have requested some work be done and it hasn't been completed, please let me know.

 

I am here alone until the students start working again, and I am doing hands-on training today 10-12 and 2-4, so I am really snowed under.  Hopefully we will be able to get a lot done on Wednesday and Thursday since some of the students will start working again and I will be working full-time on Blackboard.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Service Pack 1 installed - adaptive release

We had service pack 1 installed on our system early this morning.  This fixes a number of known problems with Blackboard 6.3.  One of the most obvious is that you will now see the Adaptive Release links when you click on the "Manage" button for a content item. Adaptive Release lets you create some logic regarding when material is displayed and available. Prior to the service pack, adaptive release was only available in course sites created after our upgrade to Bb 6.3.  Now it is available in all course sites, old and new.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Unavailable courses don't show up

If you have set a course site to unavailable it will not show up in the My Current Courses list.  You will need to go to the All Courses list to work on the course site.  As soon as you make it available it will be shown in the My Current Courses list again.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] New Tools box

The new version of Bb adds some items to the bottom of the menu on some course sites.It looks like this.

 

 

To remove the Tools box, it doesn't add any new functionality, do the following.

 

Go to Control Panel > Course Design > Manage Tool Panel.

 

In Quick View Tool Panel Options click the No buttons for all three display choices in part 1. Submit the form. Repeat in the Detail View Tool Panel Options.

 

When you get back to the course site the Tools box will probably be gone.  If not, click on the Refresh link, below the Tools box, and that will refresh the menu bar.

 

NOTE: The Refresh link seems to be a serious problem, at least as I understand it and have tested it briefly.  If you turn off a course menu item it will not disappear for students until they click on the Refresh link.  I don't know if this is all students, those who have already accessed your course site, those who are on-line at the time or some other condition. I don't know if it also applies to enabling a new course menu item, but I expect it will.  So you might change the menu and some people might not be able to see the change, or you might want to restrict access to an area but students might still be able to get in.  We will follow up on this and give more information as we get it.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Erratic performance from Blackboard?

I am seeing very erratic performance from the Blackboard system.  I have seen this off and on, both from home and from work.  The symptom is pages that don't load completely.  Sometimes images are not loaded, sometimes large blocks of the page are not loaded.  If I go back and try the same thing again it may or may not work.  Is anyone else seeing this behavior?

 

In the last week we applied App Pack 2, App Pack 3, and SSL.  And I would assume that Blackboard is "getting things ready" for the increased usage that their network sees as schools come into session.  We start earlier than most.  The biggest hit is Labor Day Tuesday, I believe.  At least it was last year.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Student lists and pictures

1. Remember that students new to UM are not placed into the Blackboard sites until the day before classes begin.  Until then you will see people in the MyUM roster that are not in your Blackboard roster.

 

2. Remember you can get a mailing list if you want to send ALL your students a message before the semester begins.  The link is in your MyUM (formerly EASY) courses list.

 

3. Remember that MyUM now provides you with a photo page of all of your registered students.  You get to it from your MyUM courses list.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Special Characters

We have been informed of some cases where the special characters are still not showing up correctly. 

 

In one case it was an announcement that was correct on one course site but wrong on another site.  In another case it was a Mac user with a file copied and pasted from Word. 

 

The new system uses a more powerful coding scheme for special characters and it may take us a while to figure out how you should be using it.  If you run into problems, please let us know so that we can help you and better understand what is happening.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] SSL security enabled

Security has been enabled on the Blackboard servers. That means that everything sent between your computer and the server will automatically be encrypted. You should see the padlock in your browser's status bar. If you notice any problems that you think this might be causing, let us know, 0K?

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Character problem resolved

The people at Blackboard ran the script last night to fix the character problem we had. Bullets and accented characters should be correctly displayed now.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Upgrade issues

Two issues have been reported so far.

 

1. Special characters such as accented letters are messed up.  Blackboard will be applying a fix to correct this on Thursday morning at 3:00 AM.  The system will be off-line for about 30 minutes at that time.

 

2. There was a problem with turning on SSL, the service that encrypts communication between your computer and the Blackboard server.  Blackboard is trying to figure out what is causing the problem.  Until they can figure out the problem we will continue to use normal web communications.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Upgrade completed

The upgrade of our Blackboard server is completed and the server is back on-line.  Everything should be as it was.  Please check your course sites and let me know if you see anything that has changed, so I can report any problems to Blackboard.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Upgrade today - status report

The Blackboard system will be going down within the next five minutes for the upgrade.  I just called Blackboard to find out what was happening.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Upgrade today

The upgrade of our Blackboard system is scheduled for today.  As of 8:30 AM the system is still available.  I don't know if the upgrade is still on schedule or was cancelled. 

 

If the system is available today and you use it, understand that it could become unavailable at any moment.  Any work that you have completed up to that time should be intact when the system returns to service.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Blackboard Hands-on Training

[Please share this with other faculty who may not be on my Bb mailing list.]

 

We have scheduled some Blackboard hands-on training sessions before the semester starts.  If you would like to participate, go to http://snipurl.com/bbtraining and register for the sessions you wish to take.  Training will take place in Merrick 201, the Foreign Language Department's computer lab.  Registration is limited to 15 participants per session.

 

Getting Started with Blackboard
	Introduction to the Blackboard course web site system for instructors that have never used the system before.
	Thursday, Aug. 18, 10:00-12:00 Monday, Aug. 22, 2:00-4:00
Using SafeAssignment in Bb
	The SafeAssignment system checks student writing for originality. This hands-on training shows an instructor how to create a SafeAssignment and use the report that it generates.
	Thursday, Aug. 18, 2:00-4:00 Tuesday, Aug. 23, 10:00-12:00
New Features in Blackboard 6.3
	UM has upgraded from Bb 6.1 to Bb 6.3. This hands-on training will show instructors how to use a number of the new features that have been added. Participants should have either taught with Blackboard before or have taken the "Getting Started with Blackboard" training prior to this session.
	Friday, Aug. 19, 2:00-4:00 Tuesday, Aug 23, 2:00-4:00

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] New Bb landing page

In order to keep people informed during the upgrade of Blackboard tomorrow, people going to www.miami.edu/blackboard and www.miami.edu/courses are being redirected to a page containing information and a link to the Blackboard system.  This page is called a "landing page" since you land on in on your way somewhere else.  I will keep the landing page updated during the upgrade.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Online Forms for service requests

I changed the Support tab a while back.  In the process we lost the link to the Online Forms.  I have put it back.

 

The online forms allow you to request things like a course merge or a student account.  It is usually better to use them rather than sending me an e-mail.  The forms make sure you have the correct information, are routed to the correct person, and are flagged so we can find them quickly.  Sorry for hiding them before.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] New features

If you would like to learn about some of the new features we will have after the upgrade on Tuesday, August 9, go to http://www.blackboard.com/viewlets/viewlets.htm and check the material under Application Pack 2 and Application Pack 3.  We currently are running Application Pack 1.

 

The most exciting new features, to me, are:

• Assessment and Survey Results Download (http://www.blackboard.com/viewlets/assessmentsurvey.swf)
• Adaptive Release (http://www.blackboard.com/viewlets/adaptiverelease.swf)
• Randomize Multiple Choice Answers (http://www.blackboard.com/viewlets/Assessment_Enhancements.swf)
• Performance Dashboard (http://www.blackboard.com/viewlets/performance_dashboard.swf)
• What's New Module (http://www.blackboard.com/viewlets/WhatsNewModule.swf)
• Gradebook Null Option (this feature allows averages to accurately ignore items that have not been completed yet - http://www.blackboard.com/viewlets/GradebookNullOption.swf)

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Blackboard will be down Tuesday

The Blackboard system will be down on Tuesday, August 9, 2005, so that it can be upgraded from version 6.1 to 6.3. 

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

FW: [BLKBRD-L] prevent test printing in app pack 3

I have not promoted this at UM but I probably should. The code listed
below is supposed to go into one of the test items, I believe.

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

-----Original Message-----
From: blkbrd-l - A list for Blackboard course administrators and faculty
[mailto:BLKBRD-L@asu.edu] On Behalf Of Brusca, Frank X
Sent: Monday, August 01, 2005 2:22 PM
To: BLKBRD-L@asu.edu
Subject: Re: [BLKBRD-L] prevent test printing in app pack 3

We've been using this code in exam instructions. It prevents printing
and copying (but not saving).

Frank Brusca
Instructional Technologist
Department of Information Technology
Roush Hall 015B
Otterbein College
Westerville, OH 43081
(614) 823-1875
(614) 823-1335 FAX
fbrusca@otterbein.edu

Basic Release 6.3.1.374/Win 2003/MS SQL 2000 SP2

<STYLE type=text/css>@media print {BODY
{display:none}!important}</STYLE>

<SCRIPT type=text/javascript>

var omitformtags=["input", "textarea", "select"]

omitformtags=omitformtags.join("")

function disableselect(e){
if (omitformtags.indexOf(e.target.tagName.toLowerCase())==-1)
return false
}

function reEnable(){
return true
}

if (typeof document.onselectstart!="undefined")
document.onselectstart=new Function ("return false") else{
document.onmousedown=disableselect
document.onmouseup=reEnable
}

</SCRIPT>