Blackboard: Improved Stability Plan for Spring 2012

Topics

1. Summary of Winter 2012 Stability Issue
2. Stability Recommendations for Spring 2012
3. Other Improvements to Blackboard for Spring Quarter
4. Blackboard Training Reminder

Summary of Winter 2012 Stability Issue

During Winter quarter, the Blackboard system experienced a number of outages. For more information about the instability issue, please see the description provided on our Known Issues page.

While we are still zeroing in on all of the causal factors involved, our team has taken a series of actions to improve performance and stability in addition to isolating the issue to one particular function in Blackboard (internal wikis).

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Stability Recommendations for Spring 2012

• One known flaw impacting the stability of the system is Blackboard’s internal wiki system. Therefore, we are recommending that the internal wiki feature of Blackboard not be used for Spring quarter. If you were planning to use the wiki this Spring, we encourage you to contact us immediately to discuss alternatives. Planned upgrades to Blackboard for the summer quarter are expected to address the known issues with the wiki feature, and we expect to be able to support the tool again in future.
• If you have a Windows PC, Blackboard recommends that you use Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 in Compatibility Mode, or use Firefox 3.6 or above. We have also had good results with the Google Chrome browser, although it is not officially supported by Blackboard for our current version. Mac users can use the Safari Web browser or Chrome. Please see our Browser Compatibility page for more details.
• It is also recommended that you utilize the most recent Java runtime available. Please visit the Java Download website to determine if your Java is out of date and install the newest version. (For your desktop computer, you may need to ask your desktop support specialist to assist you with this process.)
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 is not officially supported with our current version of Blackboard, but can be used in Compatibility Mode for most functions. If you decide to use IE 9, please notify the Help Desk of any issues you encounter, and have another alternative, such as Firefox or Chrome, installed as well so that you have an option if a certain function does not work properly in IE 9.
• Please advise students that they should save their work every fifteen minutes when taking online exams.

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Other Improvements to Blackboard for Spring Quarter

The following issues are being addressed for Spring quarter via software patches to the Blackboard system.

• Course copying should no longer cause incorrect user rights to be assigned to attached files or folders, so students should no longer see permissions errors when they attempt to open or read attached files.
• Instructors should now be able to copy content between courses for which they are an instructor, without receiving an error message.
• Double-clicking the "Save and Next" link in an online assessment should no longer produce an "Access Denied" error.
• Students should now be able to save draft posts in discussion forums.

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Blackboard Training Reminder

If you are new to Blackboard or have not used Learn 9.1 before, we recommend that you take advantage of our extensive training workshops.

Information about the time and availability of workshops can be found at the ATUS Training Website. If you are looking for a workshop that you don't see listed, you may request one by going to our Training Courses Offered page and selecting "Academic Technology and User Services" from the dropdown menu. We offer courses in course design and implementation, collaborative learning tools, assignments and the Grade Center, Elluminate, SafeAssign, and more.

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