[BB] Archiving your course sites

Bb list members,

 

I am fully aware that the loss of content twice in the last two weeks has reduced confidence.  I am sorry.

 

WHAT WE HAVE DONE:  We have changed the update process so that it is no longer fully automated.  We must go in, inspect the data, and release it, before it will be processed.  That should eliminate the repetition of the problem we have just experienced.

 

WHAT YOU CAN DO:  We encourage you to "export" your course site each time you have worked on it.  Every few weeks, or anytime you have invested an hour or more working on a site, export your site to your computer.  This creates a file that we can use, at any time in the future, to restore your site as it was when exported.  The process of exporting a site consists of going to Control Panel > Export Course, selecting the things that you want exported, and clicking the Submit button. When the next page appears, right-click on the "Click the right mouse button and select Save As" link and select "Save As" or "Save Target As" or whatever it is called in your browser.  Then specify where to save the file ON YOUR COMPUTER.  This is a zip file, containing everything from your course site and all the settings needed to recreate your site.  It can be used to restore your site, or a temporary site, so that you can access the content as it was when exported.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Again...

I know I said it wouldn't happen again.  Imagine my surprise when a faculty member called me on my cell around 6:00 PM and told me it already had happened again.  If I can't believe myself, who can I believe?

 

SHORT EXPLANATION:  Things got messed up at 4:00 PM when the whole mess started up again.  It repeated the process of removing anything that had been accomplished today.  It was supposed to be stopped sometime before 7:00 PM so, supposedly, things are back to a point where the sites can be worked on.

 

If we did work for you, correcting the error on your site after either of the previous problems, we will automatically reapply the corrections.  I will start working on it now.  We will send out notifications as we complete the sites that we know about.

 

LONG EXPLANATION:  At 3:30 PM I asked Blackboard to kill any snapshot processes that were still running from this mornings fiasco and then to start the hourly snapshot processing.  That way, when I put the files out tomorrow after carefully inspecting them, they would be processed on the next hour.  At 4:00 PM the process ran.  The process does three things: it transfers any files from a location at UM to our Blackboard system.

 

COMMENT:  I want to thank the people who have informed of these problems.  In each of the three cases it was a faculty member who made me aware of the issue.  I cannot overstate how wonderful that is.  I need your eyes monitoring what is happening.  Never hesitate to communicate with us about any issue.  Your notices are NEVER inappropriate.  I list my phone numbers on my signature so that you can use them.  Feel free to call, especially if you have sent an e-mail message and I haven't replied or sent a heads-up to the Bb mailing list.  The notice today came on my cell phone while I was driving down US 1.  The faculty member apologized profusely for calling me after hours on my cell phone.  There was no need to apologize.  I thank him, and all of you who are helping monitor things.  I promise to keep you informed whenever a problem appears.  I thank you for keeping me informed when you see something that might indicate a problem exists.

 

Best Day  (A good day is when good things happen.  Today was not a good day.  A best day is when you make the best of whatever happens.  We tried to make today the best day we could.)

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Snapshots gone wild!

Bb list members,

 

It appears that the snapshot process was corrupted again last night and 062 content may be messed up.  I haven't had time to check but I wanted to let you know that I am working on it.  I will send an update as soon as I have more information.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] SSL Certificate situation

Our SSL certificate expired yesterday.  You may start seeing a warning when you go to Blackboard about a certificate problem.  I have contacted Blackboard to renew the certificate ASAP.  I hope we can get this accomplished before Tuesday, when classes begin.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Please check any content in your spring sites

If you set up your spring 2006 sites prior Saturday, the snapshot error on Friday might have removed some of the content.  Please review your site to make sure your content is all there.  If it isn't there you will have to repeat the process that you used to put it there before.  I apologize for the extra work that this will cause.  If we can help in any way, let us know what needs to be copied, etc., OK?

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Problem with course sites - explained

Bb list members,

 

BRIEF EXPLANATION:  The multiple announcements issue is now explained.  Our snapshot file on Thursday night contained all 6,000+ spring course sites. It should have only contained the 10 or so new courses that had been added to the registrations system. This caused the repeated "Welcome!" announcements on all the sites.

 

CONSEQUENCE:  There is no way to automatically correct the problem.  I apologize.  To correct the problem on your spring 2006 sites, please go to each of your sites and use Control Panel > Announcements and then Remove the extra "Welcome!" announcements.

 

LONG EXPLANATION:  Every hour the snapshot processes starts running and processes any data that is present.  If there is no data, it shuts down.  If there is data, it processes it.  Normally this process takes a few minutes, at most, to create any new courses, add any new users, and enroll both students and instructors in their course sites..  Part of creating a new site is copying the Announcement into the new site.  That takes a bit of time.  With 6,000 sites it takes longer than an hour.  So a second process began before the first process ended and started reprocessing the data.  That added a second announcement.  This took longer than an hour, so a third announcement was added.  With more processes running, the whole thing slowed down.  Each one took longer and longer to make it through the entire list of 6,000 sites.  The sites at the beginning of the list were processed by all each run that started, but the ones at the end of the list were only processed by the runs that were able to end normally.  We killed all runs at around 11:00 AM.  The list is alphabetical, so Accounting (ACC) has 10 "Welcome!" announcements while Theatre Arts (THA) only has 3 "Welcome!" announcements.

 

In order to keep this from happening again we will be getting Blackboard to change the way the snapshot files are processed so that a new job will not start if the previous job has not completed.

 

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] SafeAssignment updated to MyDropBox Suite

SafeAssignment has been updated on our Blackboard server.  SafeAssignment now contains a number of new features to streamline your workflow.  Here are some quick notes, provided by the company.

1. Interface Enhancements:

a. New Quick Submit Functionality – Quick Submit functionality became independent of Blackboard Assignments, and now allows instructors to upload files for checking directly from their instructor accounts in a more intuitive manner. Also, the new Quick Submit feature supports organizing batch uploads into subfolders for higher convenience. (WRV NOTE: Files that you Quick Submit using the new Quick Submit tab in the MyDropBox Suite tool, are NOT associated with a specific course.  They are your submissions and are shown in the Quick Submit tab of the MyDropBox Suite in ALL your courses.  If you use this feature, I encourage you to use the New Folder box to create folders to organize your paper BEFORE you submit it.)

b. New Safe Assignment View page – the table displaying the list of submitted papers and available reports in SafeAssignment is now more compact with graphical icons instead of text links.

c. New View Paper Link – now instructors can view the text of student-submitted with all original formatting, meta-information about the paper, and student comments on one screen without downloading the file with the corresponding paper (downloading is also available).

d. New Grade Update Form in the Gradebook – now SafeAssignment reports and other SafeAssignment-related information can be viewed directly from the Grade Update form in the Blackboard Gradebook, making the grading process one-step, as opposed to the two-step process with SafeAssignment 1.x.

e. New Integrated Student View – now students can view assignment grade, instructor comments and SafeAssignment report in one integrated view.

f. Local Time Zone Support – SafeAssignment 2.0 uses local time zone of your Blackboard server for all time management within Blackboard (e.g. assignment availability dates & times, submission timestamps in Gradebook and Control Panel etc). Please note that there is still one place where submission timestamps are displayed in Eastern Standard Time – the headers of the reports (fix be fixed soon). All timestamps have time zone abbreviations attached to them to avoid any confusion.

g. Unfortunately, some of the expected and announced interface enhancements, such as progress bar display on big/slow report downloads or paper uploads, sorting Safe Assignment View table by submission time, and “What Is This” links next to some of the elements of SafeAssignment forms that may require extra explanation, were pushed back to version 2.1, which is due in February 2006. However, some of such interface enhancements will be added on the background without reinstallation of the SafeAssignment Building Block, and will appear automatically before the version 2.1 is released.

2. Integration with the MyDropBox Suite – (not relevant at UM) this version brings integration with the MyDropBox Suite Standalone and with the Re:Mark online grading and marking solution. Other products will be integrated later this spring. For more information on the MyDropBox Suite visit our updated Web site (http://www.MyDropBox.com/).

a. Re:Mark Integration – (not relevant at UM) Re:Mark online paper marking and grading system is offered to all current users of SafeAssignment at no extra cost only until August 2006 and is automatically enabled after upgrade to SafeAssignment 2.0. Any paper submitted to SafeAssignment can be commented on via Re:Mark right in Blackboard. However, due to temporary lack of training materials on Re:Mark, it is recommended to limit use of this tool to product reviews and evaluations. You can find more information on Re:Mark in the corresponding section of the MyDropBox Web site (http://www.mydropbox.com/services/remark.php). You can also preview Re:Mark enhancements planned for this spring - http://www.mydropbox.com/info/remark_demo.exe. Please forward to us any suggestions and/or feature requests regarding Re:Mark.

b. MyDropBox Suite Standalone Integration - (not relevant at UM) all changes committed by a user in the Blackboard interface, including all papers, grades and reports, will now be synchronized with the corresponding user’s account in the standalone version of the MyDropBox Suite, which makes parallel use of Blackboard-integrated and Standalone versions in one institution much easier. Standalone and Blackboard-integrated versions of the MyDropBox Suite now use one institutional database of submitted papers guaranteeing proper comparison of papers across two different versions of our services used within one institution. Please note that at this point synchronization of Courses and Assignments is offered in one direction only – from Blackboard to Standalone (i.e. Assignments registered in Standalone are not created in Blackboard, but Assignments created in Blackboard automatically appear in Standalone). Other (smaller) data units, such as reports, are synchronized bi-directionally.

3. Speed and Stability Enhancements:

a. Faster Paper Uploads and Report Downloads – on very fast connections, where data transfer speeds were limited by our servers, the throughput can increase by more than 5 times. Users with slower Internet connections should also experience noticeable speed increases.

b. Easy Copying of Courses with Safe Assignments – with SafeAssignment 1.x, copying a course (e.g. using one course as a template and “multiplying” it), would break connections between each new copy of the course and the corresponding database record in SafeAssignment system. This issue could be fixed by manually synchronizing each Safe Assignment in each new copy of a course. Now all Safe Assignments in a new copy of a course can by synchronized with one click (http://www.safeassignment.com/sync_course.pdf).

c. Numerous other stability enhancements and minor bug fixes.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Problem with course sites

Bb listserv members,

 

Something is going on with the course creation process on Blackboard.  It looks like the process is stuck.  As it cycles through, trying to create our course sites over and over, it adds another copy of the default announcement and removes any banner that you might have added.

 

Material that you have placed in your course sites should still be there.  This problem shouldn't remove items, other than the banner, as far as I can tell.

 

Blackboard has been notified and is investigating.

 

Please don't try to "correct" things at this time.  Once Blackboard has stopped the runaway process, I will let you know.  Then any problems can be corrected.  This will probably be a manual process that you will need to perform.

 

I am embarrassed that this has happened.  The Announcement page is the first page that anyone sees when they enter a course site.  Having multiple copies of the same announcement looks very unprofessional and my name is listed next to each one.  Sorry.

 

If you have special information about your course site that contradicts what I have said above, please let me know so I can investigate further.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Secure connections enabled

At 3:00 AM this morning the Blackboard system began using secure connections.  If you encounter any problems, please let us know. 

 

The most likely issue will be a warning encountered if you are getting to Blackboard from an address that doesn't match the security certificate.  You should get to Blackboard by going to the www.miami.edu/blackboard address.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Copying an old course into new course

1. You can copy the content from an old site into a new site.  A video demonstrates the process.  Use the "Support" tab on Blackboard and then the "Instructor Training Videos" to find the videos.  The video you will be looking for is called "How do I copy an old site into a new site?"  The hardest part is entering the exact course ID for the destination.  You can Browse for it, using the Browse button, and search on some part of the course, such as the course number.  Then select the correct destination course from the list.

 

2. WARNING:  Do NOT copy the enrollments.  If you do you will have added all the students from your old course into your new course site.

 

2. After you copy a site, there may be some cleanup needed.  Most likely you will find duplicate menu items.  That is, you may have two "Course Documents" items in the new site.  The first thing to do is change the name of one of them so you can tell them apart.  Go to Control Panel > Manage Course Menu and use the Modify button next to one and change the name.  I usually go to the second one in the list and change it to "Course Documents 2" or "Assignments 2" or such.  Then go back to the course site and see what is in the two areas.  If the menu items are still the same, use the "Refresh" button to force the menu to reflect your changes.  You probably will want to remove one.  Go back to Control Panel > Manage Course Menu and use the Remove button next to the item you want removed.  When you return to the course, you will probably have to use the "Refresh" button again to force the menu to reflect your changes.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] My Current Courses

I have changed the settings on My Current Courses.  The Summer II 2005 courses were still being displayed.  I have removed them.  The Spring 2006 courses are now being displayed.  I think that will help those people who are getting ready for the new semester and will remind students about their registration status.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Spring course sites

1. The spring course sites are created and currently available from the "All Courses" tab. Registrations should be current, with a nightly update.

 

2. I expect to add the spring course sites to the "My Current Courses" module on Thursday, December 15.  If someone needs it done before then, please contact me.  It is an all-or-none setting, but it doesn't really matter to me when they appear.

 

3. If you want us to merge your sites so that multiple course sections or multiple listings use a single course site on Blackboard, please fill out the on-line form and we will set things up to accomplish it.  You can find the form from Blackboard > "Support" tab > "Online Forms" link > "Course Merge" form.  It takes overnight during a weeknight to process a merge request.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Security change coming on Friday morning

The security on the Blackboard system will be changed on Friday morning at 3:00 AM.  All requests to Blackboard will be encrypted.  This is done by using https instead of http.  This is also known as SSL.  If you are on-line at that time, you will probably be required to login again.  There should be no noticeable down time.

 

This change is not supposed to cause any trouble.  I am letting you know so that you can notify me if you see anything that needs our attention after the switch. 

 

Friday morning 3-5 AM is our standard window for doing any work on the system.  This is one of the few times that we are using it. 

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Spring enrollments should be current

The student enrollments in the spring 2006 (062) course sites on Blackboard should be current.  We ran the snapshot update at 3:00 PM today.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Spring course sites created

The spring course sites have been created.  The sites are currently available through the "All Courses" tab.

 

The student enrollment reflects the status as of Tuesday, November 15.  I am working on obtaining the data to bring the enrollments up to date.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Spring course site load

I am trying to run the spring course load on Blackboard again tonight.  I will let you know the status tomorrow morning.  When created the courses will contain, at best, the enrollment as of a week ago.  I will bring things up to date as quickly as possible.  To those of you who need access to this information I sincerely apologize for the delays.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Spring (062) course sites - Still not ready

Blackboard users,

 

Early last week we tried to create the Spring 2006 (062) course sites on Blackboard.  We ran into a problem.  We create our sites from a template so new sites will have the settings that we want.  Instead of using the menu settings from the template, the system used something called the "Default Course Settings"  so the menus on the new sites were messed up.  For example, the Tools menu was enabled in all the new sites, and ALL the tools were enabled.  We didn't want that.

 

We sent the support people at Blackboard the list of all the courses that had been created.  They said that they would remove them all within a couple of hours.  Then we could recreate them, after making the Default Course Settings work as best we could.  Unfortunately the process of removing the old courses is failing.  Out of 7,000+ sites, it can't remove the last 700 or so.  The support people have been working on the issue.  As soon as it is resolved we will get things going so sites will be available for you.

 

I am aware that some special courses are starting in the near future and that some of you need to access the system to send notices to students and such.  I will keep you informed of the process. I apologize for the delay.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Please don't use the 062 sites yet

The 062 (spring 2006) sites were created last night, but there appear to be problems.  Please do not work on these sites yet as we may need to remove them and recreate them again.  I will work on it and give you an update later today.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Spring courses

We are scheduled to roll-in the spring courses starting this evening.  It usually takes more than 24 hours to generate all the sections for one semester.  I will send out a notification when the process is completed.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Virtual Classroom and Chat are working again

As of 6:10 PM last night the virtual classroom and chat functionality of the Blackboard system were restored.  The "collaboration server" had to be restarted.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Collaboration server problem

It appears that there is a problem with the collaboration server on the Blackboard system.  I am not able to open a Chat or Virtual Classroom connection. I have opened a ticket with Blackboard, Inc.  I will let you know when I hear something.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] SafeAssignment update

I just updated SafeAssignment from version 1.6.5 to 1.6.6.  One faculty member reported a situation where students were seeing a huge java error message after submitting a paper.  This upgrade corrected that error. 

 

The documentation lists the following improvements that are included in version 1.6.6.

a. Access to Reports from the My Grades section of the Student Interface – this feature allows students to view their SafeAssignment matching reports directly from the My Grades sections of their Blackboard accounts.
b. Removal of Deleted Assignments from Gradebook – deletion of assignments is properly reflected in the Blackboard Gradebook with all grades remaining intact but an option to view submitted papers and reports becoming unavailable.
c. Reprocessing Enabled for 0% Reports – now reports with 0% matching can also be reprocessed whenever needed.
d. SafeAssignment Access for Graders and CourseBuilders – users with Grader and CourseBuilder roles now can use SafeAssignment in the corresponding courses according to their Blackboard access privileges.

If you experience any problems or notice anything odd, please let me know so I can inform the developers and they can resolve it.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Bb outage report

Bb went down at 8:15 am today and came back at 9:45 am. Our data base locked up, according to to support people. They are investigating what might have caused this. It is not a common problem.

 

Sorry for the delay in sending this report. I am at the Educause conference in Orland and couldn't get back on the net until now.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Blackboard - Service_In_Progress

-----Original Message-----
From: asp.notify@blackboard.com [mailto:asp.notify@blackboard.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 8:13 AM
To: aspnotify@opsmart.blackboard.com
Subject: Blackboard ASP - Notification 1098982410 - Service_In_Progress

Service In Progress: Dear Valued Customer, We have
been alerted to a problem with your hosted Blackboard system which is
preventing your site from operating properly. We currently have our ASP
Engineers working on the situation and should have the problem resolved
shortly.

As with all technical contacts, if you have any questions concerning
this email, please contact our 24/7 ASP Call Center at 1-888-788-5264
and choosing option 3 or via the web at http://support.blackboard.com.

[BB] Blackboard down?

It appears, from Orland, where I am attending Educause , that our Blackboard is down. I will get more info and send an update.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Blackboard bought WebCT

FYI - Blackboard has announced that it is buying WebCT, its primary competitor.  See http://www.blackboard.com/webct/index.aspx for the announcement. They have done this before with two or three other competitors.  Within a few years the competitor's product has ceased to exist.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Discussion Grader add in to Blackboard

The Discussion Grader is now available on our Blackboard system.  It allows you to assign participation points to each student, based on their postings to a discussion forum.  When posting the grades you can see all the messages from that student.

 

Note that this is by forum, not thread.  If you are going to use this you will probably want to make individual forums for each graded unit.

 

The Discussion Grader can be found in the Course Tools area of the Control Panel of your course sites.  Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] New way to add people to your Blackboard sites

It is now possible to add someone to your course and give them special rights (TA, instructor, etc.) in one step, "Add Users by Role."  This link is found in the "Course Tools" section of the Control Panel.   I would encourage you to use it all the time, even if you are adding someone as a student, since it also provides more feedback than the "Enroll User" system in Blackboard.

 

The Course Tools section of the Control Panel contains links to the based Blackboard tools and the add ins that we have installed.  Advanced Group Management, Discussion Grader, Safe Assignments, and now Add Users by Role are all in this area.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Advanced Group Management

The Advanced Group Management tool had a problem.  You could not use it to create a group.  I have installed the latest version so it should be functioning now. 

 

This tool is an improvement over the Group Management tool that is still available.  If you use groups, I encourage you to use the Advanced Group Management tool to create the groups and assign the users.  It provides more options and power than the Blackboard tool. 

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[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>

[BB] SafeAssignment syllabus statement and consent form

SYLLABUS STATEMENT: If you will be using SafeAssignment to process original writing submitted by your students, I encourage you to include a statement to that effect in your syllabus.  Here is some sample wording.

Written Assignments
 
This class uses the SafeAssignment feature of Blackboard to help students learn to use sources and citations appropriately. SafeAssignment matches the material in student papers against material on the Internet and in our database of UM papers. Representing the words or ideas of someone else as your own is a violation of the honor code and a serious infraction in this course. If you have questions about appropriate ways to include the words or ideas of other people in your papers, contact the instructor. Papers submitted to SafeAssignment are added to the database of UM papers.

CONSENT FORM:  In order to manage our risk, a consent form will be automatically inserted into each SafeAssignment link when you create it.  Here is a sample of what it will look like.

 

 

For anyone without the ability to view the graphic, here is the wording of the message that will automatically be added to each SafeAssignment item.

You are about to submit a paper via SafeAssignment in Blackboard. The contents of your paper will be matched against material from the Internet and papers from UM. The results will be made available to your professor. By submitting your paper, you agree to this process and you also agree to grant the University of Miami permission to retain a copy of your paper to be used for future matching.

Our legal counsel feels that this will reduce our risk of "Intellectual Property" issues. 

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] My Bb projects

We are working on a number of projects related to our Blackboard system.  Here is a quick status update.

 

1. HARD DISK BACKUP:  We contracted to have our entire system backed up to a hard disk.  Then the HD is to be shipped to us.  That will be a permanent archive as of that date.  If we mistakenly remove any courses, it will allow us to recover them.  We sent the PO for this and are waiting for Bb to backup the system and send us the HD.  Until this is completed some of the projects below cannot be completed.

 

2. OLD COURSE SITE REMOVAL:  We are going to remove course sites that are more than two years old.  We have an exception list for special cases.  We have currently set the courses to "unavailable" so that students can no longer access them.  We will not remove them until after we receive the HD backup listed above.  We will announce this prior to taking any further action.

 

3. FILE SIZE REDUCTION:  We want to take steps to reduce our file storage needs.  Removing the course sites that are more than two years old will help.  We will be working with people with large sites after the old courses are removed.

 

4. ENABLE SECURITY:  We want to turn on security so that everything sent between a computer and Blackboard is encrypted. This is referred to as SSL or https.  You shouldn't see any changes because of this, but the information you communicate with Blackboard will be better protected.  As soon as we get a date for this we will announce it.  That way you can let us know if there are any unexpected consequences.

 

5. APP PACK 2 SYSTEM UPGRADE:  We want to upgrade the system to App Pack 3.  We are currently on App Pack 1, so we will need to upgrade to App Pack 2 first.  There are no real changes that you will see when this is accomplished.  We do not have a date for the App Pack 2 upgrade.  We will announce it as soon as we get it.  The downtime for this should be 15 minutes or so in the early morning, like 3:00 AM.

 

6. APP PACK 3 SYSTEM UPGRADE:  This is the upgrade that has some great new features.  The "What's New" feature will be back, listing the new items that have been added to a site since your last visit.  You will be able to see a page with all of your students and when they last logged in.  You will be able to create material that is released based on powerful logic.  Some new plug-ins will be available to help you grade discussion board communications and import course material from Merlot.  This upgrade is scheduled for Tuesday, August 9.  The system is scheduled to be down all day.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Bb to be down Tue, Aug 9

I want to upgrade our Blackboard server to App Pack 3, the latest release.  Blackboard will need 24 hours for the upgrade.  During that time the system will be unavailable.  We are scheduled to perform the upgrade on Tuesday, August 9th. 

 

I will be distributing complete information on the features in App Packs 2 & 3 (AP2 will be applied prior to AP3 and will not require any noticeable downtime). The main two features we will be adding are the ability to export raw data from tests (and surveys, I think) and the ability to hide/reveal items based on extensive logic.  For example, you might have a reading with a quiz.  After a student gets 80% or more, say, on the quiz, the assignment for that reading appears.  Until the student gets 80% the assignment doesn't show up.  Or Chapter 2 doesn't show up if the student can't get some score on the Chapter 1 material.  I think these two features are the most important, but there are lots of others.

 

I realize having the system down for a day will impact some courses.  With current schedules there is no window in which some courses are not being taught.  In addition Blackboard hosts our server and will only perform two upgrades a day, so we had limited dates available.  I hope this is enough warning that anyone impacted will be able to create alternate plans.

 

My goal, as always, is to stabilize the system two weeks before classes begin and not perform any additional changes in functionality during the semester.  Security changes will always be applied as needed, of course. Since classes begin August 24, I need the system stable August 10.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that everything will work on August 9.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Welcome, Welcome, Welcome... [Oops]

I recently discovered that the fall 2005 course creation process messed up. Multiple "Welcome" announcements were created on some course sites.  If this affects any of your fall course sites, I am sorry.

 

If we created duplicate Welcome announcements on any of your Fall 2005 course sites, there are three different ways to clean things up. 

 

1. Let us know what sites have the duplicate announcements and we will take care of it. Anytime I see the problem I automatically clean it up. If you let us know the course ID, ENG205A for example, we will be happy to remove the duplicates.  Just send me an e-mail with any affected sites.
   
2. If you want to fix it yourself and you have not created any announcements in your Fall 2005 course site yet, the simplest solution is to remove ALL the announcements on your course site.  You can do that from Control Panel > Recycle Course (in the Course Options section) > Announcements (check ONLY the Announcements box) > type "Remove" > Submit.
   
3. The other way to fix it yourself, and the way we do it, is to go to Control Panel > Announcements and repeatedly click on "Remove" > "OK" for each announcement.  If you have a lot to remove (I saw 17 on one site and 23 on a number of others) you can speed things up by clicking on "Remove" and then pressing the Enter key, since "OK" is the default button.  That way you don't have to keep moving the mouse.  As you remove them it won't seem like anything is happening, since the list is so long.  After you remove enough you will see that the list is growing shorter with each removal.

 

Again I apologize to those of you who may be inconvenienced by this error.  Apparently it was caused by my only allowing 12 hours for the creation of the 9,500 fall course sites.  It actually took 13 hours.  Next time we create courses I will allocate 24 hours.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Course site merges

A number of faculty request that we merge multiple course sections or listings into one course site on Blackboard.  We are happy to do that.  The easiest and most accurate way to get us the information is to go to www.snurl.com/bbforms and fill out the Course Merge form.  Courses for this fall all have "-061" at the end of the course ID. 

 

This form is simply mailed to me, so the format you use is not terribly important. Feel free to use the comments section to clarify your request or to include multiple merges on one form.

 

I try to work on your request the day that I get it.  I send an e-mail confirmation when I have set things up.  The merges are actually performed overnight.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Telephone access

If you are trying to reach me and I don't pick up at the work number, try my cell.  The new voice mail system at UM won't take a message on my number.  After 20 seconds of rings, it very politely says "Sorry, that is not a valid extension."  I have opened a ticket to get it looked at.  Until it is resolved, if you need me and I am not at my desk, just call my cell.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] Blackboard Upgrade - App Pac 2

We are applying App Pack 2 Service Pack 3 to the Blackboard system tomorrow.  I don't expect it to have any major change in what you see or what you can do.  The actual upgrade will take a few minutes sometime around 3:00 AM, so the upgrade should not affect availability.

 

This upgrade is necessary so that we can (1) turn on security in the form of SSL during July and (2) probably apply App Pack 3 at the end of July.

 

Security will encrypt everything sent between your computer and the Blackboard system, increasing the privacy of the communication.

 

App Pack 3 was officially released today.  It includes a number of new features, but does not effect any of the current features.  That is, you will be able to keep doing things the same way you have been or choose to investigate and use the new features.  I will provide more information on App Pack 3 after we have looked at it on our test server.  The tentative date for installing App Pack 3, should we proceed with it, is July 26, more than four weeks before the start of the fall semester.  It will also only require that the system be off-line for a few minutes during the early morning hours, so availability will not be an issue.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

Re: [BB] SafeAssignment

OK, I really feel foolish.  All of the papers and the reports on matches found on the Internet were exactly where they were supposed to be.  I forgot where to look.  So there was no problem with SafeAssignment, just a user error on my part. 

 

One of the limitations of the SafeAssignment matching software is that it cannot put information into the gradebook.  That will be possible in Blackboard Release 7 (maybe next summer), but not in Blackboard Release 6.  So I was supposed to go to Control Panel > SafeAssignment, not Control Panel > Gradebook.  My bad.

 

Sorry for the false alarm.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

---

From: UM Blackboard Announcements [mailto:BB@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU] On Behalf Of Vilberg, William R.
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 4:50 PM
To: BB@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU
Subject: [BB] SafeAssignment

I just went to two of my sites that had SafeAssignment submissions and all the links are gone.  I have contacted SafeAssignment.  I will post an update when I get news from them.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

[BB] SafeAssignment

I just went to two of my sites that had SafeAssignment submissions and all the links are gone.  I have contacted SafeAssignment.  I will post an update when I get news from them.

 

Bill Vilberg

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

 

Quiz submissions after time expires

[From a message on the BLKBRD-L mailing list...]

When students take a timed quiz in Bb, they can still answer questions
and submit the quiz after the time limit has expired. This produces a
'!' rather than a mark in the student gradebook and requires manual
attention from the instructor.

Blackboard ASP - Notification 1098980817 - Service_Restored

-----Original Message-----
From: asp.notify@blackboard.com [mailto:asp.notify@blackboard.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 5:54 PM
To: asp.notify@blackboard.com
Subject: Blackboard ASP - Notification 1098980817 - Service_Restored

Dear Valued Customer,

At approximately 4:15 EST ASP Engineers detected a problem on the
private network switch that connects your database server to your
application server. Upon investigation it was determined that a
forwarding loop was compromising accessibility to the internal network
addresses of your servers .

Our ASP Engineers have corrected the routing problem, and have restored
optimal service to your hosted Blackboard system. If you are still
experiencing problems, or require additional information regarding this
incident, please contact our 24/7 ASP Support Team at 1-888-788-5264 and
choosing option 3 or via the web at http://support.blackboard.com.