Author: digitaleducation

[Closed] Slow document conversion when submitting to Blackboard Ultra

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(Update: 21.11.24: This issue has now been addressed by Blackboard and normal service has resumed)

We have been made aware that the document preview interface for submitting a Blackboard Ultra assignment is currently taking longer than usual to load. Please note that this does not affect students’ ability to submit their files.

If, when uploading a file, a student encounters delays in the document preview loading, or the message “The conversion needs more time. Please try again later,” they can proceed with the submission without waiting for the conversion to complete, provided they are confident they have attached the correct file.

After submission, they should return to the submission point and click the download icon to verify that their work has been uploaded correctly. If everything appears as intended, they can consider their work submitted and record their receipt number as usual.

This issue is currently affecting multiple universities. We have reported it to Blackboard and will provide updates once it has been resolved.

If you have any questions or concerns, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

SafeAssign Maintenance, Tuesday 19 November

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On Tuesday, 19 November, between 11:00 and 13:00, SafeAssign will undergo a maintenance update.

During this time, the service will be completely unavailable, and any submissions will need to be resubmitted after the maintenance. This upgrade is critical for improving system performance and ensuring more efficient plagiarism detection for Blackboard.

If you have any questions about this update, please refer to the Blackboard support, or email us at digital.education@bristol.ac.uk.

Student access to Turnitin submission points – reminders for assessment period

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Ahead of the assessment period, we would like to remind you of two issues that may interfere with student access to their Turnitin submission points:

  1. The “Open in New Window” setting in Blackboard for Turnitin submission points
  2. The use of Internet browsers with strict privacy settings (eg Safari with its default factory settings).

For Administrators: Blackboard ‘web link options’ for Turnitin submission points

We recommend that instructors and administrators edit their Turnitin assignments to open in the same window as the Blackboard page, as opening in a new window may be treated as a “pop-up” window and blocked by some browsers. To do this:

  • Click on the chevron next to the Turnitin assignment and select Edit
  • Scroll down to the Web link options section and change “Open in New Window” to “No”

  • Click Submit at the bottom of the page.
  • You will see a pop-up asking if you would like to change the Turnitin submission to open in a new window; click Cancel.

  • You will exit the Edit page; click on the assignment to check that Turnitin opens in the same tab.

For Markers and Students: Internet browsers with strict privacy settings

We are aware that people are sometimes seeing the error message ‘Invalid or missing state’ when trying to access Turnitin. This issue has been reported to Turnitin and is linked to the privacy settings of the users’ internet browser.

Please make the following information available to students and staff in your school, to assist them if they encounter this error.

If using Safari, we recommend that users try accessing Turnitin via Chrome or Microsoft Edge in the first instance, as Blackboard and Turnitin submissions have been successfully tested with these University-supported browsers.

If switching browsers is not a suitable solution or you, we suggest updating the browser’s security settings to enable JavaScript and third-party cookies. The ‘Invalid or missing state’ message comes up when launching a Turnitin assignment in a new browser window with third-party cookies and/or JavaScript blocked. This can be resolved by editing the browser’s Privacy & Security preferences so that it will not block any background scripts that Turnitin is trying to load.

Please follow the steps below for your preferred browser:

  • In Safari, select Safari > Preferences > Security > Web content > Enable JavaScript
  • In Firefox, select File > Preferences > Privacy & Security; if Strict is enabled, please change this to Standard
  • In Microsoft Edge, select Microsoft Edge > Preferences > Cookies and Site permissions > JavaScript > Allowed (recommended)
  • In Google Chrome, select Settings (you can open the Settings page by clicking the icon with three stacked horizontal lines in your browser’s menu bar) > Privacy & Security > Site Settings > Content > JavaScript > Ensure that the option ‘Sites can use JavaScript (recommended)’ is enabled.

If you would rather not enable JavaScript and/or third-party cookies in general, please instead add “api.turnitin.com” and “api.turnitinuk.com” to the sites that are allowed to use JavaScript / third-party cookies.

Once you have completed reviewing your browser’s Privacy & Security preferences, please close your active browser and re-open a new browsing session so that any changes can take effect.

If you experience any problems, please contact the DEO via digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Updated Marks and Feedback integration

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The University will update its current offline marking tool, which allows administrators to bulk download and upload assessments, starting in October 2024. The update will not change the functionality of the tool, and all older files will still be available.

Why is this happening?

Blackboard no longer supports our current version of the offline marking tool, which allows administrators to bulk download and upload assessments. They will be replacing our old Marks and Feedback extension with a newer version that uses a more modern integration standard, called Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI). This change was planned to take place during the summer break, but technical issues have pushed it back until now.

LTI benefits

  • Interface improvements
  • Compatibility with Blackboard Ultra
  • Time stamps for uploads
  • Long-term support

Key differences

The new Marks and Feedback tool mirrors the functionalities of the old version. There are slight differences in the menu for accessing the new tool. However, the overall functionality will remain the same, and the student experience will not be affected. The key differences are:

  • A slight change in the way staff access the new tool
  • Bulk downloads that take more than two minutes to process will appear in the ‘previous download’ view
  • Previous downloads will no longer be available as a column in the assignment list.

Key dates

After 30 September 2024, the existing Marks and Feedback extension will be unavailable for downloads, uploads and releasing grades. From 1 October, new Blackboard offline assignments will use the Marks and Feedback LTI. Files that were submitted before this change, and to old courses, will still be available in the new tool.

How to access the new Marks and Feedback tool

Depending on whether your course is using Blackboard Original or Blackboard Ultra, you will have different ways of accessing the tool.

Blackboard Original view

For Blackboard Original, instructors will be able to access the tool via Course Tools under Course Management. The ‘Assignment Anonymity’ tool will be replaced by ‘Marks and Feedback Settings’, while ‘Marks and Feedback’ will replace the following items:

  • Download assignments
  • Download, Upload, and Release uploaded grades
  • Release uploaded grades
  • Upload grades and feedback.

In the image to the right, the items highlighted in red will be replaced by the Marks and Feedback LTI tool links, in green. (Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

Blackboard Ultra view

For Blackboard Ultra, instructors will need to navigate to the Course Content area and then click on the right-hand Course Tools section to open the panel showing ‘Marks and Feedback’ as well as ‘Marks and Feedback Settings’.

In the image to the left, you can see the new LTI tool links highlighted in green. (Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

 

 

Useful links

Further information

Any further updates will be added to this blog. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

SafeAssign Maintenance, Monday 26 August

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On Monday, 26 August, between 10:00 and 13:00, SafeAssign will undergo a maintenance update.

SafeAssign users may experience disruptions for up to two hours while the service is temporarily unavailable. Once the maintenance is complete, Blackboard submissions using SafeAssign will be processed with a delay. However, no data loss is expected.

This downtime is necessary for a backend infrastructure update as SafeAssign transitions to a new system.

If you have any questions about this update, please refer to the Blackboard status page, or email us at digital.education@bristol.ac.uk.

 

[Resolved] Turnitin AI detection interruption of service

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Earlier this month, we discovered that some AI writing detection reports in Turnitin had not been generated. Upon investigation, Turnitin confirmed that this was due to an error at their end, and that the issue occurred between 31 July and 5 August.

Today, Turnitin engineers reported that they have regenerated the AI reports for submissions made during that period.

We have spot checked some of the affected submission points and can confirm that the AI reports have now been successfully generated.

We apologise for the inconvenience caused and are grateful for your patience while we were working to resolve this issue. If you have any queries, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

[Resolved] Turnitin service incident, 9 August

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The service has now been restored.

Between 7 August at 21:00 and 9 August at 17:15, Feedback Studio users may have experienced intermittent access to Similarity Reports, encountered issues with downloading copies of the reports and/or digital receipts, or noticed that Similarity Reports were stuck in processing. Further information is available on the Turnitin status page.

If you have any concerns or questions, please contact us at digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

[Closed] Turnitin service incident, 9 August

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Turnitin has informed us that the Feedback Studio is currently experiencing an unexpected service incident.

During this time, users may intermittently find that Similarity Reports are stuck processing or encounter issues when attempting to download a copy of a Similarity Report and/or digital receipt.

Further information is available on the Turnitin status page.

If you have any concerns or questions, please contact us by emailing digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

[Open] PowerPoint files with grouped images display incorrectly in Blackboard Annotate

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An error has been identified in Blackboard Annotate that can affect the display of submitted Microsoft Power Point (PPTX) documents containing grouped images. The error rearranges the images displayed in the Annotate interface, affecting the marker’s view of the document.

Blackboard developers are aware of the error. However, they cannot fix the issue, as it depends on third-party software beyond their control.

This error affects the DEO’s “Blackboard Online” workflow, and we have updated the recommendations in our EMA – Blackboard Online Workflow guidance to remind users that Blackboard Annotate works better when files are submitted in PDF format. While students can still submit documents in other formats, we cannot guarantee that footnotes, grouped images, and styling will be displayed correctly.