[BB] Course Merges for the Fall

Blackboard Users,

 

Back to school time is approaching fast, so I wanted to remind you of some of the things we can do for you BEFORE the fall rush. The following are link to online forms that will create tickets in our ticketing system requesting a:

 

Course Merge: Combine two or more courses into one course site.

 

Course Copy:   Copy the material from one course site into another one.

 

Student Account: Create a student account for an instructor which can be enrolled in their course to view it as a student would.

 

Have another request or question? Fill out our Customer Service Request Form or call us at 305-284-3949.

 

 

____________________________________

JENNIFER CLISTER

Blackboard & Technology Integration Analyst

University of Miami IAC

305-284-3949

 

[BB] Bb Downtime Late Sunday Night

Blackboard Users,

 

Blackboard needs to diagnose an administrative problem for us and will be unavailable for at least some of the time between the early morning hours of 12:00am and 4:00am, Monday, July 23.

 

Hopefully this interruption will not be too much of an inconvenience to you or your students.

 

 

____________________________________

JENNIFER CLISTER

Blackboard & Technology Integration Analyst

University of Miami IAC

305-284-3949

 

[BB] Fall Courses under "My Current Courses"

Blackboard Users,

 

The Fall 2007 semester (-081) is now visible under “My Current Courses” on the Blackboard Home tab.

 

 

(The fall semester is only FIVE weeks away.)

____________________________________

JENNIFER CLISTER

Blackboard & Technology Integration Analyst

University of Miami IAC

305-284-3949

 

[BB] Blackboard Update: UPGRADED

Blackboard Users,

We did it! Blackboard has been officially upgraded to system 7.2. It is back up and running.

Thank you all again for your support, assistance, and patience.

If you haven't had a chance to look around and/or try out some of the new features, I look forward to your feedback when you do.

If you have a course on the temporary server....

Courses We Moved Before the Upgrade:
We can move it back to regular at the end of the summer when your semester is finished. If you haven't posted a lot of content on the temporary server, and you want to start using regular Blackboard again, you are welcome to repost your content there and inform your students that they should switch back. If you decide to do this, you should post an announcement on the temporary server to make this clear to students. We can help you do that.

Courses We Created During the Upgrade:
You can stay on the temporary server if you like, but it might be easier for you to abandon it and start using regular Blackboard again since your students are probably using temporary accounts.

NOTE: "Moving" means we replace the content of one site with the content on the other site. We will not move any courses at the end of the summer until we double-check with you.

Thank you again,

________________________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
BlackBoard Manager
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949

[BB] Blackboard System Upgrade: TESTING

Blackboard Users,

Finally! Blackboard has been upgraded, and we've ironed out all the wrinkles. We're ready to have you test it so that we can be absolutely certain it is ready to be made publicly available on Thursday, 7/5 (according to schedule).

As we have asked in the past, could you please review your course sites to make sure things look and function properly? Some things may look a little different, and there are a few new functions, but if you could confirm that everything works, it would be a great help.

Here is the URL: http://216.200.111.251

NOTE: It is important NOT to share this URL with your students. The site will be available to everyone on Thursday (7/5) via the regular Blackboard URL.This is only a test.

Information for Instructors with Courses on the Temporary Server...

For those of you who have had your courses moved to the temporary server, you are welcome to keep using it for the rest of the summer. At the end of the summer, we can replace the version of your course that is currently on regular Blackboard with the one you have been using over the summer (if you want that). Of course, you are free to start using regular Blackboard again and abandon the temporary server if you choose to do so at any time.

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 publicly available on Thursday (7/5). 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 again,

____________________________________

JENNIFER CLISTER

Blackboard & Technology Integration Analyst

University of Miami IAC

305-284-3949

[BB] Blackboard System Upgrade: UPDATE

Blackboard Users,

I had planned to distribute a URL that would allow you to access the Blackboard server so that you could look at your course content and verify that it looks and functions correctly.

Unfortunately, we are having a problem installing the latest version of Safe Assignment, and we are working with both Blackboard and Safe Assignment to resolve the problem before asking you to take the time to review your course sites.

Thank you for you patience, and I'll provide more information as it becomes available (which I hope will be very soon).

At this point, we are still on target to be back up and running on Thursday (7/5).

__________________________________
Jennifer Clister
BlackBoard Manager
University of Miami IAC

[BB] What's New in System 7.2

Blackboard Users,

 

Here is a document that will highlight some of the changes to the new Blackboard System 7.2.

 

More information on testing the new upgrade will be available later today.

 

____________________________________

JENNIFER CLISTER

Blackboard & Technology Integration Analyst

University of Miami IAC

305-284-3949