News & Announcements

• Technology @ the VILLE Spring 2007 Newsletter
  Updated: 02/20/2007

More Information

Internet Explorer 7 [users accessing Bb through Internet Explorer 7]
Recently a number of issues have been reported relating to the use of Internet Explorer 7 and Blackboard. Blackboard.com is aware of these issues and has a planned fix in its next version release. In the mean time the Blackboard Administrator is recommending that students use Mozilla/Firefox for discussions, the virtual classroom, and wimba sessions.

Blackboard is offline daily for network maintenance and backup
Information Technology will perform preventative maintenance on network equipment each evening at 7 p.m. This preventative maintenance may result in a temporary disruption in reaching campus resources and the Internet, including BlackBoard. This interruption will be for approximately 20 minutes.

Attention Office 2007 users: Please note that files saved using the new Windows Office 2007 have a special file extension that ends with an "x". (example word.docx) Files saved with the new extensions can not be opened by anyone who does not have the current version of Office. All files should be saved using the "Save As" menu and selecting the option for "Word 97-2003 document" or "Excel 97-2003 document" or "Powerpoint 97-2003 document" depending on the application you are using.

Critical Information for Summer session faculty:

Wed 4/9/2008 8:58 AM

Greetings CAOs!

We plan to upgrade from Bb 7.0 to Bb 7.3 during the Summer 2008 so that faculty and students can enjoy the new features and functionalities for Fall 2008.  In addition, the upgrade includes “fixes” for known bugs that are in version 7.0.  Bugs are common occurrences in any application which is another reason why upgrades are important.

Campus Bb System Administrators have been invaluable in assisting with the upgrade timeline/process as well as testing Bb 7.3 on the test servers.  In addition, they have been using the test servers to conduct faculty training on Bb 7.3. The test servers will be shut down tomorrow so that the test servers can be configured for the summer courses.

All summer 2008 courses will run on Bb 7.0 on the test servers and faculty and student log-ins will not change.  This will allow the production servers to be upgraded and configured to Bb 7.3 for Fall 2008 and beyond. 

Faculty developing courses using Blackboard for Summer 2008 will not be able to work on their Bb courses from 12:00am April 12 through April 27.  Their courses will be available to them again on April 28 at which time the test servers will have been configured to run the Summer courses including migrating existing developed courses.  As we mentioned before--faculty and student log-ins will not change.  Campus Bb System Administrators  have been instrumental in getting this information out to the faculty and in some cases are working with a few faculty on a case-by-case basis who need to continue development during this time frame.  Students will have access to their summer courses until August 30, 2008. Faculty and System Administrators will have access until October 5.  The summer courses will then be migrated and restored in Bb7.3 on the Fall production servers.  Faculty members need to contact their campus Bb System Administrator if a student has an incomplete and needs to continue in the summer course or if they need their summer course copied and migrated sooner for use in their Fall course.

Faculty who will be using Bb for their Fall courses will be able to do so beginning  July 9th at which time the production servers will be configured to Bb 7.3.  Having faculty wait to develop their fall courses until July 9th will minimize potential migration issues with building blocks, learning objects, as well as improvements in functionalities in Bb 7.3 such as Discussion Boards. 

As we all know, no plan is fail safe!  There is a scheduled meeting on July 7th with Bb System Administrators, SyTEC, as well as my office to make a go/no go decision as to whether Bb 7.3 still meets our expectations.  If it does, it will be available July 9th as mentioned.  If it does not, the production environment will be immediately restored to Bb 7.0 and available to faculty on July 11th.

Thanks!
Kathleen

Dr. Kathleen Howley
Asst Vice Chancellor for Academic & Student Affairs
PA State System of Higher Education
2986 North Second Street
Harrisburg, PA 17110-1201