Category: Blackboard

An issue has been identified with the “Forced Completion” setting in Blackboard Tests.   

When Forced Completion is set to ON, the auto-submit feature necessarily also becomes active and cannot be switched off. This behaviour is expected and as designed. However, if you then switch Force Completion OFF again, the option to deactivate auto-submit remains unavailable.  

Blackboard are investigating the issue and we will post further updates when available.  

In the meantime this can be resolved by: 

1. Removing the force completion setting and clicking submit. 
2. Re-entering the settings page and clicking submit a second time. 
3. Re-entering the settings page for a third time, where the option to change auto-submit should be available again. 

The Digital Education Office generally recommends that Force Completion is set to OFF. If it is ON, then students must finish the test in one go. If a student leaves the test for any reason, eg closes their browser by mistake or loses Internet access, they will not be able to re-enter it. Staff would then need to clear the attempt, in which case the student would have to start again. This can lead to significant additional administrative work for staff and as well as cause undue distress for students.  

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

We are aware of reports of Qwickly Attendance timing out when users try to record attendance, resulting in an error message. We have reported this to the supplier, who is working to resolve it as quickly as possible. We will post any updates to this blog.

We apologise for the inconvenience that this is causing.

Qwickly Course Tools is now working correctly again. This tool allows users to make changes to multiple courses at once, such as:

• changing course availability
• posting announcements
• sending emails.

Qwickly Course Tools can be accessed from the home page in Blackboard.

Qwickly Course Tools is currently experiencing an issue which is preventing users from updating course availability and from posting announcements for multiple courses at once.  The issue has been reported to Qwickly and we are working on a solution.

Note that it is still possible to change course availability and to post announcements in individual courses using the standard methods within Blackboard.

Occasionally users may find equations do not display correctly in Blackboard. If this occurs you should clear your browser cache, then refresh/reload Blackboard.  Clearing the cache can also be done in advance as a preventative measure once you have logged into Blackboard eg if students are taking a test which includes equations 

Firefox is unaffected by these occasional equation display issues. 

How to clear your cache

Chrome

1. Click on the group of three dots in the top-right corner of the Chrome window to open the menu.
2. Select ‘Settings’ from the menu.
3. On the ‘Settings’ screen, select  ‘Privacy and security’
4. Click on ‘Clear browsing data’.
5. On the ‘Clear browsing data’ screen, tick the box next to ‘Cached images and files’, set the time range to ‘All time’ and click ‘Clear data’.
6. Close down the Settings tab and refresh/reload Blackboard.

Microsoft Edge

Instructions for other browsers on how to clear the cache should be available from the Help section on the browser menu, or its online support pages.

Apologies for any inconvenience. The DEO is continuing to work with Blackboard on a permanent fix.

We are aware that a small number of people are getting an error message when they try to access Blackboard, such as “This site can’t be reached”. We are investigating the issue with the assistance of IT Services and Blackboard, and will update this blog when we have further information. In the meantime, anyone who is affected by this may be able to restore access by using the University’s Virtual Private Network (VPN) or the Windows Virtual Desktop.

The issue appears to originate in BT’s nameservers, so only people using BT as their Internet Service Provider should be affected.

Before exams, coursework or timed assessments are marked, schools should please ensure that Blackboard Grade Centre columns are hidden from students until marks and feedback are ready to be released. To prevent students from seeing marks too early, you should also ensure Total and Weighted Total columns are hidden. Check a column header for a circle with a red line through it which indicates the column is hidden from students.

If it is not hidden, and you need to hide it, click the down arrow next to the column header and select Hide from students (on/off).

If this option isn’t available, or if the column has a green tick next to it, you will need to hide it in a different way:

1. Click the dropdown arrow next to the column name.
2. Click Edit Column Information.
3. Scroll to the bottom and set Show this column to students to No.
4. Click Submit.

For more information on administering Electronic Management of Assessment workflows, please see our EMA guidance page.

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

An update to Blackboard today has resolved the issue with equations not displaying properly in some browsers. If you still find that some equations are not displaying correctly for you, please clear the cache of images and downloaded files in your web browser (using, for example, these instructions).