Finals Week and Blackboard Winter Maintenance

Bb Professor:

Finals week is quickly approaching and as in previous semesters, in anticipation of increased usage of Blackboard during the final week of the semester (December 5 -11), we will optimize Blackboard's performance by making the Course Copy feature unavailable. Enrollment updates will also be suspended and will resume on December 13, 2009.

We ask that you follow these tips to further improve Blackboard performance during the remainder of the semester:
• Allow your students to take an examination during non-peak hours (such as at night or during the weekend).
• Allow an extended time period for exams: set a timer for an exam and allow students an extended period of time over which they may take the timed assessment.
• Do not delete assessments that have been deployed and graded. Instead, make the items unavailable in a content area and make the Grade Center item unavailable and do not include the item in Grade Center score calculations.
• Do not import courses or course cartridges to Blackboard during the last weeks of the semester.
• Remind students not to attempt assessments during the Blackboard Maintenance Windows: every day from 2 a.m. until 5 a.m. and on Sundays from 5 a.m. until 9 a.m.
• For more assessment tips, visit the CIRT website:
o Tips for Faculty: http://www.unf.edu/dept/cirt/bb/support/assess_tips_faculty.html
o Tips for Students: http://www.unf.edu/dept/cirt/bb/support/assess_tips.html

Blackboard will be unavailable for scheduled maintenance from December 18, 2009 at 12:01 a.m. until December 22, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. During this system downtime, users will be unable to access Blackboard courses and Blackboard Course Requests (BbCAR). http://www.unf.edu/dept/cirt/bb/support/calendar.html

Please note: Fall Term Grades are due Tuesday, December 15, 2009 by 10:00 a.m. If you keep your grades on Blackboard and are unable to turn in your grades by this deadline, you will need to download your Blackboard Gradebook by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, December 17, 2009. Click here for instructions: http://www.unf.edu/dept/cirt/bb/faq/download_grades.html

Please contact CIRT if you have any questions or concerns: cirtlab@unf.edu or 904.620.3927.

-Blackboard Administrators

Course Blog Errors resolved

The blog tool has been restarted and course blogs are functioning normally,

Course Blog errors

Some users are reporting errors when accessing course blogs.

Blackboard Reported Issues Resolved

During the day on Tuesday, 11/24/09, some users experienced problems entering their Blackboard courses in which the course Homepage would not load. The What’s New module was disabled system-wide to resolve the problem. On Tuesday evening, some users experienced problems with Grade Center functions and one of the servers was restarted to resolve the issue.

Elluminate Maintenance Window

Elluminate Live! sessions/recordings will be unavailable suring a maintenance window on Saturday December 5, 2009 from 10:00pm – 2:00am US Eastern (UTC -5)for software upgrades. This means that you will not be able to launch an Elluminate Live! session/recording during that time.

Blackboard Available

UNF network issues have been resolved and Blackboard and other services are available again.

Blackboard Unavailable

The UNF network is down, preventing access to Bb and other web-based services.

Disk Space Error Resolved

This issue has been resolved and users should no longer receive errors when submitting assignments or uploading files.

Disk Space Error

Some users have reported receiving the error message below when submitting assignments or uploading files. The issue is being investigated.


Content

C:\blackboard\apps\tomcat\work\Catalina\localhost\webapps_blackboard\upload__3b4d3f5a_124c8d337a0__7ff7_00057620.tmp (There is not enough space on the disk)

For reference, the Error ID is 20e7d6ad-dd3a-4f9a-8d63-263f13094a23.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 7:15:51 PM EST

Assignment File Download

A patch for the known issue with the Assignment File Download option in the Grade Center returning the following error: "The data area passed to a system call is too small" has been applied in Blackboard and instructors are now able to download Assignment files from the Grade Center using the Assignment File Download option.