Category Archives: Service announcements

Blackboard partial service disruption

Posted by

Blackboard is currently experiencing an unexpected partial service disruption. During this time, you may experience an error when attempting to upload materials to Blackboard. Blackboard is investigating.

We apologise for the disruption and will provide an update when we hear anything further.

Please check the IT service status page to see how the University’s systems and services are working and for planned maintenance information. You can also check the Blackboard status page.

Re/Play Service Update

Posted by

During Teaching Block 1, we have seen a huge shift not only in the use of Re/Play – 1,000,000 views of content in October this year, compared to 180,000 last year, which equates to over 18 years of video watched in a 30-day period – but in the way we have created content.

Previously, 95% of our content came from equipped rooms and 5% was uploaded, but that is now switched round. This shift has meant that the DEO has been working with the supplier, Sonic Foundry, to review how our system is set up to absorb and stream content. Based on the feedback we have received, we are making some changes to the service to improve the experience of using it.

  1. We are monitoring playback and, in particular, buffering problems for students, and are looking to improve how the system delivers uploaded content to them.
  2. We have made some small adjustments to the way video is uploaded, so that this will be quicker for staff. These changes will also improve playback for students.
  3. Where students are reporting problems with playback, we are updating the video player to enable staff to give students permission to download content. We are currently testing this to ensure it will work, but are hopeful this will be in place in the next week.

If you have any questions about any element of this service, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Turnitin service update – 6th Nov 3pm

Posted by

Turnitin have informed us that similarity report generation times are returning to normal. However, some users may still be experiencing degraded report generation times, due to the backlog created by yesterday’s incident.

More information can be found on the Turnitin Status page.

We apologise for any inconvenience.  If you have any questions please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

Turnitin partial service disruption – update 5th Nov 3pm

Posted by

Turnitin report that they believe they have resolved the earlier issue, but are continuing to monitor the situation.  Users will still continue to experience slow similarity report generation during this time, while they process the backlog of submissions.

More information can be found on the Turnitin Status page.

We apologise for any inconvenience.  If you have any questions please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

Turnitin – partial service disruption 5th Nov 11.40am

Posted by

Turnitin have informed us that their service is currently experiencing an unexpected service disruption.  Users may find that Similarity Reports are not generating.

We will update you with any new information when we have it.

More information can be found on the Turnitin Status page.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

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

 

 

Collaborate partial service disruption – connection error

Posted by

Collaborate is currently experiencing an unexpected partial service disruption. During this time, you may experience an error when joining a Collaborate session. Blackboard Collaborate is investigating.

We apologise for the disruption and will provide an update when we hear anything further.

Please check the IT service status page to see how the University’s systems and services are working and for planned maintenance information. You can also check the Blackboard status page.