The Blackboard upgrade will start at 7 pm Monday 29 July 2019. Blackboard will be unavailable up to midday on Tuesday 30 July. We will announce completion of the upgrade through this blog.
Author Archives: Mike Cameron
Blackboard maintenance, Friday 31 May 2019, 2 am – 6 am
Blackboard will be performing essential maintenance to their data centre in the early hours of Friday 31 May 2019. Some network disruption is expected for around 30 minutes towards the beginning of the maintenance window, which runs from 2 am to 6 am.
We apologise for the inconvenience caused.
Issue affecting Blackboard login now resolved (11:50 am 18 May 2019)
IT Services have successfully resolved the issue with Single Sign-On which prevented users from logging in to Blackboard. Apologies once again for the inconvenience.
Users unable to log into Blackboard 18 May 2019
A problem with the University of Bristol Single Sign-On service is preventing the majority of users from accessing Blackboard. The Problem started in the early hours and IT Services are working on a fix. We apologise for the inconvenience caused and will update the blog when we have further information.
The “Quick Tools” in Blackboard will be unavailable between 1:00 pm on 3 January and 12:00 noon 4 January
The “Quick tools” feature (pictured below) will be temporarily unavailable between 1:00 pm on 3 January and 12:00 noon 4 January. This is to allow us to update the tool. No other features of Blackboard are affected.
The “Quick Tools” allow instructors to post announcements to multiple courses and toggle course availability for students. These actions can still be performed within individual courses during this brief update period. See:
Blackboard now available
Following the successful overnight upgrade to Blackboard the service is now available. The upgrade has improved the functionality through which students can download annotated feedback from Box View. Our Electronic Marking of Assessment support pages include guidance on how students can do this.
Blackboard planned maintenance – service at risk 9 pm Sunday 14 October to 9 am Monday 15 October
We are planning a minor update to Blackboard between 9 pm on Sunday 14 October and 9 am on Monday 15 October. We will confirm the maintenance following further testing of the update. If we can proceed with the work, there will be unavailability over this period and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. This update will, amongst other things, make it possible for students to download annotated copies of their marked assignments from Box View.
Blackboard Ally
We are delighted to announce that Blackboard Ally will be available from Monday 24th September. Ally is a new tool which improves the accessibility of content uploaded to Blackboard for all users, including those with disabilities.
This video shows how Ally works to improve the student experience, save staff time and give the University an insight into how it meets its legal requirements for accessibility.
Ally automatically converts uploaded content into a variety of accessible alternative formats, such as audio, tagged PDF and ebook. Staff will see a small colour-coded meter icon next to uploaded content; clicking this icon will provide guidance on how to improve accessibility and provide quick ways to amend the uploaded content.
Accessibility score icons
Students do not see the accessibility score icons and will only ever see links to the automatically-created alternative formats.
Having accessible content benefits all students by providing formats that meet their needs. Additionally, new legislation coming into force requires all public sector websites, intranet pages and downloadable content to have accessible alternatives after 23rd September 2018. VLEs like Blackboard are included in this legislation, so we’re pleased to provide a tool to ensure Blackboard complies with this while taking pressure off University staff to meet requirements.
Our Blackboard Ally page contains links to guides and videos. If you have any comments or further questions, please contact us via digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
Blackboard data issues affecting staff 3 September 2018
We are investigating a a temporary glitch with staff course enrolments in Blackboard 2018 courses this morning, which we believe has been fixed. Please get in touch with digital-education@bristol.ac.uk if you experience any issues. Students should not have been affected.