EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
If you have any serious problem with Blackboard being upgraded (and therefor unavailable) the weekend of July 2-3, 2011, please let me know NOW.
DETAILS:
Our Blackboard system is scheduled to be upgraded from 8.0 to 9.1 on Saturday, July 2nd, and Sunday, July 3rd of this year. That is the first weekend of Summer School 2. Our plan is to take the system down, have Blackboard upgrade it, and bring it right back up. Since the 4th is a holiday, that should give us some time in case we need it, before students will hit it on the 5th. The system will be completely unavailable during the upgrade. Faculty using the system will want to review their class sites on the 4th or early on the 5th to make sure everything is correct.
This will be an "in place" upgrade. All courses, accounts, content, grades, etc., will be there when the upgrade is completed. The two things that will happen are: (1) the system will be down on July 2nd and 3rd and (2) the system will come up with the new Blackboard 9.1 interface. Some things will look different and, especially for the instructors, some things will work differently. It will be better, MUCH better, than the current system.
Having been a faculty member years ago, I know how frustrating it can be to have something change and have to adapt to it. We will do everything that we can to make the change go as smoothly as possible. We will have an on-line course to certify people who want to learn all about version 9.1. We will have videos for people who just want to know how to do certain things. We will have training sessions where we demonstrate how to do things and then you can try it yourself. We will have handouts that cover certain common tasks. We will have special sessions just to show the three or four major differences between 9.1 and 8.0. We will have people standing by as soon as the system comes up on the 3rd to work with you and explain or resolve anything that you need.
We selected July 2-3 after careful review of alternatives. We can't do it between the spring and SS1 terms because there is only one day between them. Same thing between SS1 and SS2. There are two weeks between SS2 and the start of the fall semester, but I have a standing rule that we won't make changes to Blackboard during the two weeks before fall semester starts. That is the time that most faculty are working to create syllabi and get their class web sites set up on Blackboard. I won't make any changes then unless they are absolutely required for security or to fix some issue. SS1 has many more classes than SS2 so it would be better to do it during SS2 rather than SS1. It will still have an impact, but not as great. We have programs such as the Global Academy and EMBA that are year round, so no matter when we do the upgrade they will be affected. We hope that getting it done in two days will not adversely affect those programs. We also hope that by making the announcement as early as possible, they will be able to make alternative plans, if necessary. Given our analysis, we came to the conclusion that July 2-3, the first weekend of SS2, is the best time to do it.
So, if you have any serious problem with Blackboard being upgraded (and therefor being unavailable) the weekend of July 2-3, 2011, please let me know NOW.
Lots more information will follow. Once the date is decided, we can move ahead with other things.
Bill Vilberg
Instructional Advancement
Richter Library, Room 325
bill.vilberg@miami.edu
786-250-2255
http://iacinfo.org - Access to the information you need, WHEN YOU NEED IT.
