Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Update: Bb Upgrade Issues

eLearning Services has been working with Blackboard to rectify the problems we have encountered since the upgrade to Service Pack 13 (SP13).

Resolved: Problem opening and deleting Discussion Board threads
Opening discussion threads can take up to 3 minutes, and deleting discussion threads take a VERY long time and may result in error messages.
Status:  This issue has been resolved. 

Issue:  Interface color scheme is not consistent
You will notice that the color scheme on various Blackboard pages are not consistent (some banners are blue and others are gray, some text is black, other text is white).
Update:  We have updated most of the interface colors, but have a few places where there is light colored text on a light colored background, which makes it impossible for the end user to read. We have found unreadable text in the inner menu pages of the Roster Manager, and Insert/Edit image and Insert/Edit Media on the Content Editor tool bar. If you identify pages that have unreadable text, please email us so that we can be sure these pages are corrected.
Status:  We are working with Blackboard to resolve this issue.

New Issue:  Browser Inconsistencies
We are finding that some features in Blackboard operate inconsistently in different web browsers.  For example, cut and paste (Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V) functions work differently in Firefox version 17 than in Firefox version 22 and 23. 
Solution/Workaround:  For the time being, Google Chrome has tested to be the most stable web browser for the current version of Blackboard. We suggest you use the Chrome browser until we have more stable information on the various versions of Firefox. You can download the Chrome web browser here.        
Note:  Internet Explorer is still NOT recommended and will not be supported.

New Issue:  Calendar Does not Load
We have noticed that the calendar does not load for some users. This problem is directly related to the number of courses to be loaded on the calendar. For those people who only have a few courses, the calendar will load with no problem. For those people who have “lots” of courses, the calendar will either take a long time to load or does not load at all.
Status:  We are working with Blackboard to resolve this issue.

Thank you for your patience as we work through these issues.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Blackboard Upgrade and Maintenance

The college’s Blackboard system will be upgraded to Blackboard 9.1 Service Pack 13 (SP13) beginning Thursday, August 15th at 10:00 PM. 
Blackboard will be completely unavailable from Thursday, August 15th at 10:00 PM until Saturday, August 17th at 11:00 PM.  

WHAT'S NEW IN Bb 9.1 SP13?

Bb 9.1 SP13 contains several new and exciting updates that should hopefully make your lives a little easier. Please see below for a list of the new features available with SP13 and look for our “New Feature of the Week” emails that will highlight each feature.

Feature enhancements include:
  • Verify Student Activity or Lack of Activity During a Test
  • All Questions Are Now Retained in Exported and Imported Tests
  • Redesigned Discussion Interface
  • Calendar
  • Retention Center
  • Inline Assignment Grading
  • Test Enhancements
  • Math Formula Editing
  • Quick Links Tool
  • Mobile Support for Mashups
  • Video Everywhere
  • Notifications
For more information and videos on the new Blackboard 9.1 SP13 interface and features, please see What's New for Faculty - Blackboard 9.1 SP13 .