Re: [BB] Course access

I also received this email.

--- On Mon, 1/26/09, Patricios, Nicholas N. <npatricios@MIAMI.EDU> wrote:

> From: Patricios, Nicholas N. <npatricios@MIAMI.EDU>
> Subject: Re: [BB] Course access
> To: BB@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU
> Date: Monday, January 26, 2009, 3:32 PM
> Andrew
> I do not why I received this e-mail. You ought to know it
> as perhaps it did not go where you intended.
> Nicholas
> ________________________________
> From: UM Blackboard Announcements [BB@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU]
> On Behalf Of Andrew Green [a.green@MIAMI.EDU]
> Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 2:05 PM
> To: BB@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU
> Subject: [BB] Course access
>
> Jennifer,
>
> I'm trying to access some material I put up on one of my
> classes during Spring 2005. I've clicked on the course
> tab, but see no listing for it. Could you please help me
> with this, as it's rather urgent – I'd like to use it
> with my class tomorrow. Thanks.
>
> All the best,
> Andrew

Re: [BB] Course access

Andrew
I do not why I received this e-mail. You ought to know it as perhaps it did not go where you intended.
Nicholas
________________________________
From: UM Blackboard Announcements [BB@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU] On Behalf Of Andrew Green [a.green@MIAMI.EDU]
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 2:05 PM
To: BB@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU
Subject: [BB] Course access

Jennifer,

I'm trying to access some material I put up on one of my classes during Spring 2005. I've clicked on the course tab, but see no listing for it. Could you please help me with this, as it's rather urgent – I'd like to use it with my class tomorrow. Thanks.

All the best,
Andrew

[BB] Course access

Jennifer,

I’m trying to access some material I put up on one of my classes during Spring 2005.  I’ve clicked on the course tab, but see no listing for it.  Could you please help me with this, as it’s rather urgent – I’d like to use it with my class tomorrow.  Thanks.

All the best,
Andrew

Re: [BB] Blackboard Problems: RESOLVED

Blackboard is back up and running again.

Thank you for your patience,
Jennifer

____________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
Blackboard System Manager
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949

-----Original Message-----
From: UM Blackboard Announcements [mailto:BB@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU] On Behalf Of Clister, Jennifer R
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 8:22 AM
To: BB@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU
Subject: [BB] Blackboard Problems

Bb Users,

Blackboard is experiencing problems. I am looking into it right now.

-Jennifer

[BB] Blackboard Problems

Bb Users,

Blackboard is experiencing problems. I am looking into it right now.

-Jennifer

[BB] Blackboard Course Merge?

Bb Users,

 

Do you need a Course Merge this semester? That means we take multiple courses or course sections and collapse them into one Blackboard site.

 

Alternatively, we can also augment your course. This means that you maintain all of the original course sites, and add one additional site that includes all students from all combined sections.

 

Just fill out the Course Merge Form.

***For an augment, please note that in the comments field.***

 

Please pass this message along to anyone you think may benefit from it.

____________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
Blackboard System Manager
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949

******** Join the Blackboard Mailing List  *********

 

[BB] Blackboard Upgrade Reminder 12/30-31

Bb Users,

 

This is just a reminder to let you know that Blackboard will be unavailable due to a minor upgrade and maintenance on Dec. 30^th and 31^st.

 

If you try to access Blackboard on January 1^st and still see an error screen, make sure you close your browser down completely and try again. If you are not sure whether you have closed all of your running browser sessions, just restart the computer.

 

After that, if you have problems, please create a ticket or email me.

 

Thank you as always, and happiest of happy new year.

____________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
Blackboard System Manager
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949

 

[BB] Blackboard UNAVAILABLE 12/30 (Respondus)

Bb Users,

 

Blackboard will be unavailable starting at 1:00am on December 30^th, and will be restored up to 24 hours later. They conservatively scheduled 24 hours of downtime.

 

The changes apply mainly to the Respondus Lockdown Browser users:

1.       Help text is displayed when user attempts protected assessment without Respondus Lockdown

2.       Students must use Respondus Lockdown Browser to review completed protected assessments

3.       Use Respondus Lockdown Browser to review completed protected assessments

For more information on the Respondus Lockdown Browser (A Custom Browser to “Lockdown” Tests in Blackboard), please read below.

____________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
Blackboard System Manager
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

A Custom (and Standardized) Browser to “Lockdown” Tests in Blackboard

 

 

The Respondus Lockdown Browser (http://www.respondus.com/products/lockdown.shtml)

 

Now you can deploy tests in Blackboard and specify that you want students to use the Lockdown Browser to take the test. Your students will have to download the browser, but once they do it will lock them out of EVERYTHING on their computers until the test has been submitted. This is a deterrent for cheating, but it also standardizes the browser students use to take the assessments (on Windows and Macintosh platforms). This reduces technical problems and makes those that do arise easier to troubleshoot. If enough people are interested, we will be able purchase a campus-wide license.

You can try it now to see what you think, then bring your questions to the Lunch & Learn.

§         Video about how students would access a test using the lockdown browser: http://www.respondus.com/movies/LDB_Bb_Intro1/LDB_Bb_Intro1.html

§         Quick-start guide for instructors:
http://www.respondus.com/downloads/RLDB%20Quick%20Start%20Guide-Bb-Enterprise-Instructor.pdf

§         Link to download the browser:
http://www.respondus.com/lockdown/information.pl?ID=527636896

 

Here are some additional Lockdown Browser features:

· Assessments are displayed full-screen and cannot be minimized

· Assessments cannot be exited until submitted by users for grading

· Task switching or access to other applications is prevented

· Printing functions are disabled

· Print Screen and capturing functions are disabled

· Copying and pasting anything to and from an assessment is prohibited

· Right-click menu options are disabled

· Browser menu and toolbar options are disabled, except for Back, Forward, Refresh and Stop

 

 

[BB] Blackboard "Lab"

Bb Users,

 

I am trying an end-of-the-semester experiment in the new Faculty Exploratory on the 3^rd floor of Richter Library. I am going to hold “working office hours” so that if you want to come and work on your Blackboard site(s), I will be there to help you when and where you need it. If it’s successful, I’ll keep doing it.

 

Feel free to stop by one or both days.

 

Fri., Dec. 12^th from 10-11am

Wed., Dec. 17^th from 2-3pm

 

 

*Directions:

Take the elevator to the 3^rd floor and make a right. It’s the last door on the left.

____________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
Blackboard System Manager
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949

 

Re: [BB] Safe Assign Problems

Bb Users,

Access to Safe Assign has been restored, but due to overwhelming volume, it is running much slower than usual --- both to submit and to generate reports. Blackboard has increased the number of connections available to Safe Assign and bounced the server to restore and improve service. But it is still slower than what we are used to.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

____________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
Blackboard System Manager
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949

---

From: UM Blackboard Announcements [mailto:BB@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU] On Behalf Of Clister, Jennifer R
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 1:55 PM
To: BB@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU
Subject: [BB] Safe Assign Problems

Bb Users,

Safe Assignment is not working. I am working with Blackboard to resolve this problem as quickly as possible and will send an update as soon as I have one.

If you have papers that are due this afternoon, you might want to have your students email them to you. We can zip them all and run them through Safe Assignment (via Direct Submit) when it is up and running again.

I will keep you posted, and I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

-Jennifer

____________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
Blackboard System Manager
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949

[BB] Safe Assign Problems

Bb Users,

Safe Assignment is not working. I am working with Blackboard to resolve this problem as quickly as possible and will send an update as soon as I have one.

If you have papers that are due this afternoon, you might want to have your students email them to you. We can zip them all and run them through Safe Assignment (via Direct Submit) when it is up and running again.

I will keep you posted, and I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

-Jennifer

____________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
Blackboard System Manager
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949

[BB] Course Removal, Course Evals, Grade Center

Bb Users,

Three Quick Updates…

1. The 2005-2006 school year courses are in the process of being archived and removed from the Blackboard system.
2. There is currently a “My CoursEvals” link on your Blackboard homepage. This is for anyone taking courses with online evaluations. This link will remain until Dec. 9^th.
3. On Friday, Dec. 5^th at 2:30pm in Memorial 313, I am doing a Bb Grade Center training in case anyone needs extra help or a refresher to prepare end-of-semester grades. Register here: http://www.iacmiami.org/events

-Jennifer

____________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
Blackboard System Manager
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949

[BB] Archiving & Removing '05-'06 Blackboard Courses

Bb Users,

 

It is time to archive and remove old courses from Blackboard.

 

Every year we archive and remove old courses. This time we will be removing the 2005-2006 (Fall 2005 – Summer 2006) courses from the Blackboard system (ending with -060, -061, -062, -063, -064). Courses from the 2006-2007 school year will be made unavailable to students, but will still be accessible to faculty. You can find your old courses in Blackboard by going to the Courses tab.

 

I will begin disabling these courses so that they can be archived and removed on Monday, December 1.

 

I have attached a document that explains how to archive and save your courses to your computer or disk if you would like to maintain your own archive. (We do maintain an archive here at the Instructional Advancement Center).

 

QUESTIONS:

1. WHAT IS ARCHIVING?
   Archiving means we take your entire course and save it to a disk. Then we remove it from the Blackboard system. If we ever need to restore the course, we can, but it may take a while for me to dig it out of the archive since we maintain over 100,000 courses.
   
   
2. CAN YOU ARCHIVE AND SAVE YOUR OWN COURSE?
   Yes, you can! Attached is a document that explains how to archive your course and how to download a great tool that will make navigating that archived course easier. Here is a link to a PDF version of the archive instructions attached to this email. You can also access the instructions through the Support tab in Blackboard.
   
   

 

If you need any more information, please let me know or open a ticket: Blackboard Help Desk.

 

Best wishes for a smooth end-of-the-semester/year,

Jennifer

____________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
Blackboard Manager & Analyst
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949

 

[BB] Safe Assign Update!

Bb Users,

 

I have just upgraded our version of Safe Assign. Safe assign can now accept .docx formatted documents (finally!). For those who have been having more problems with Safe Assign this semester than usual, Blackboard has lead me to believe this will help.

 

If you experience any problems, please try clicking the “Synchronize this course” link at the top of the Safe Assign page which you access from your course’s control panel:

 

 

 

Please let me know if you have any problems (or create a ticket).

 

- Jennifer

____________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
Blackboard System Manager
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949

 

[BB] Blackboard VERY slow

Bb Users,

 

Blackboard has been unbearably slow off and on this morning. We are aware of the problem, and I am working with Blackboard to correct the problem as quickly as possible.

 

I apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

 

-Jennifer

____________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
Blackboard System Manager
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949

 

[BB] Blackboard Problems Look Resolved

Bb Users,

It looks like our problems have been resolved: Wimba Voice Tools, SafeAssign, and the My Current Courses module.

I am still trying to confirm whether the My Current Courses module is appearing in the right position, so if you can see it, but it is not where it used to be, please let me know.

Thank you for all your patience with these issues.

-Jennifer

________________
Jennifer Clister
University of Miami Blackboard System Manager
305-284-3949

[BB] Bb Problems - restart scheduled at 3:00 am

Bb Users,

After the small voice tools upgrade we had this weekend (where only one of our two Blackboard servers was restarted to accept the changes), we have been experiencing some other strange problems with the server that was not restarted. I hope that these problems will be resolved when we restart both servers at 3am Tuesday morning.

Please avoid doing anything important (like taking a test) in Blackboard between 3:00am and 3:30am Monday night/Tuesday morning (10/21).

If you or your students experience problems with Safe Assign, Wimba voice tools, or anything else that was working fine before the 3am restart, please try accessing Blackboard via this link: http://snipurl.com/umbba

Once the servers have been restarted, you may need to shut down your browser completely before you are able to login again.

If you experience problems after 3:30am Tuesday morning, please let me know.

____________________________________
JENNIFER CLISTER
Blackboard System Manager
University of Miami IAC
305-284-3949
[cid:3307363200_6493526]

[BB] Wimba Voice Tools

There is a problem with the Wimba Voice Tools. At the moment they work on one of our three servers. If you go to http://snipurl.com/umbba you will reach the correct server.

You may also see a message warning you about the security certificate, since the name of the server does not end with "miami.edu" but you can ignore that.

We are working on correcting the problem so that all three servers will work.

Bill Vilberg

[BB] Blackboard Problems

Blackboard Users,

I am very sorry, but we are experiencing some Blackboard problems this weekend. The My Current Courses module is not working correctly, and this was causing some problems when people logged in and saw an error. "My Current Courses" has been disabled until we fix it. In the meantime, please access your courses via the "Courses" tab at the top of the Blackboard interface.

In addition, we did a mandatory upgrade of the Wimba voice tools this weekend, and are still experiencing some problems with the voice boards. I am working to get them resolved, and I was promised they would be fixed before Monday, but Monday is getting closer, and I have not gotten anyone to resolve the issue yet.

If you have problems logging in to Blackboard, please try closing the browser and logging in again.

I am very sorry about the problems or frustration these issues are causing. I am doing my best to resolve them as quickly as possible. I will send out a message when I have more information.

Thank you,
Jennifer

Blackboard Help Desk: http://umblackboardhelp.helpdeskconnect.com

Bb List Information

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 06:00:20

You are subscribed to the Bb list at the University of Miami. I created
this list to distribute information about the Blackboard course web site
system at UM.

Here are a few reminders.

1. If you want to unsubscribe you can do it a number of ways. A. Send me
an e-mail and I will remove you from the list. B. Go to
http://listserv.miami.edu/archives/bb.html, click on the "Join or leave
the list" link, and follow the instructions. C. Send the message
"UNSUBSCRIBE BB" (in the body of the list, not the subject) to
listserv@listserv.miami.edu. (This will only work if sent from the
address that you are subscribed as.)

2. If you know someone who would like to subscribe tell them to do one of
the following. A. Send me an e-mail and I will add them to the list. B.
Go to http://www.snurl.com/bbforms and fill out the "Mailing List" form.
B. Go to http://listserv.miami.edu/archives/bb.html, click on the "Join
or leave the list" link, and follow the instructions. C. Send the message
"SUBSCRIBE BB" (in the body of the list, not the subject) to
listserv@listserv.miami.edu.

3. Searchable archives of the list are available at
http://listserv.miami.edu/archives/bb.html. The archives go back to July
2001 when the Bb list was created.

Bill Vilberg bill.vilberg@miami.edu Home: 305-255-9138 Work: 305-284-3949
Cell: 786-218-3052