Blackboard Users,
As you know, Blackboard is currently down. It will be back up and publicly available on Thursday, July 5th.
After speaking with the people at Blackboard today, we are on schedule to test the system starting Tuesday, July 3rd. We will have the 3rd and 4th of July to test the new system to make sure it is ready to release.
When Blackboard makes the system privately available to us (through a URL), we will share it with you so that you can review your course sites and make sure everything looks OK. We will ask that you not share this URL with your students because we will take the system back down if there are any problems. Blackboard will be available to students on July 5th.
Stay tuned for more information on testing the new system when it becomes available to us.
Also, stay tuned for another message that will give an overview of new features in Blackboard System 7.2.
Information for Instructors with Courses on the Temporary Server…
For those of you who have had your courses moved to the temporary server, you can remain on the temporary server for the rest of the semester. At the end of the summer, we can move your course back over to regular Blackboard for posterity (if you want that).
* Remember that any courses that were moved but not edited do not need to be moved back. All the content that was on Blackboard before it went down will still be there when it comes back up.
For those who have NOT had courses moved, but have had temporary courses and accounts created, you may want to switch back to regular Blackboard when it is available again. Any content that you posted before Bb went down will still be there, so if you haven’t posted too much new content to the temporary server, it might be easier to abandon it. Since your students are logging in to the temporary server with temporary accounts (while students in courses that were moved before Bb went down have the same login info as they do on regular Bb), it may be easier for them to return to the regular Blackboard site.
Thank you for all your patience and contribution to this great effort.
____________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
Blackboard & Technology Integration Analyst
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949
