Xerte is currently unavailable due to critical work on the network being carried out by IT Services.
We will blog again when work has been carried out and Xerte is available.
Category: Service announcements
Scheduled Turnitin Maintenance, Saturday 25 October, 2025
Turnitin have informed us that their services will be unavailable due to scheduled maintenance on Saturday 25 October between 16:00 and 22:00 BST. During this maintenance window, users will be unable to submit or mark papers, or to view marks, feedback or similarity and AI reports.
Further information is available on the Turnitin status page.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.
Amazon Web Services issue resolved
At 10.32, Amazon Web Services (AWS) reported that they had started to correct the issue that was affecting services (including Blackboard) this morning. Our own testing shows that our services now appear to be working normally again, although AWS warn that they have a backlog of queued service requests that will take some time to work through.
[Closed] Global Amazon Web Services issue
This issue was resolved, starting at 10.32 on 20 October 2025.
There is currently a global issue with Amazon Web Services, which is causing multiple problems with other cloud-based services, including Blackboard and Turnitin. We are monitoring the situation and are in contact with the service suppliers, and will update this blog when we have further information.
Blackboard is still accessible and operational – the main impact is that you may be unable to access other, connected tools from within Blackboard, such as Turnitin and Re/Play.
RePlay Lecture Recording 2025.
The core service of automatic lecture capture will still work in the same way for the new academic year and there are some improvements.
For staff who are new to Bristol our web pages explain exactly what to expect
The key messages are –
Adding content through Blackboard Ultra – you should spend sometime looking at our guidance to ensure you are familiar with how to do this.
Recordings can now be added directly to a channel in a course using the Add Presentation button these can be pre-recorded or recorded directly in to the page
Templates are now uniform and all lectures will be captured at a higher frame rate and the video template will no longer be needed to be requested
Lectures will be captioned using automatic speech recognition, there is no mandate to edit these but we would recommend having a quick check once generated
Updates will be applied to the system throughout the year and we will use this blog as the main communication channel.
Where to get more help and training
You can find all of the guidance for getting the best from Re/Play via the DEO’s Re/Play webpages. Re/Play | Digital Education Office | University of Bristol
There are also a number of Re/Play related workshops and training sessions planned for the start of term.
DEO have new Re/Play training which you can find and book via Develop.
IT Services have user guides and run sessions on the audio visual equipment in rooms.
[CLOSED] FeedbackFruits LTI is not available
The following issue was resolved 25 September 2025, 12:34. Full service has now been restored.
The FeedbackFruits LTI used for peer-review assessments in Blackboard Ultra is currently unavailable to staff and students. Attempting to access the LTI will display an error message.
The Digital Education Office is in contact with the supplier and is working to resolve this issue promptly. Updates will be made to this post when they are available.
QMP at risk period:- Sat Sept 20th 2025 09.00 am – 11.00 pm
Questionmark OnDemand are performing scheduled maintenance on their platform on Saturday 20th September 2025 and advise of potential downtime or service disruption during this time.
Please see more information on their web pages here: Questionmark OnDemand – Scheduled Maintenance – Questionmark
Enhancing assessment and Feedback: Welcoming FeedbackFruits to the University of Bristol.
As part of our ongoing commitment to enhance the student assessment and feedback experience, the DEO is thrilled to announce the onboarding of FeedbackFruits!
FeedbackFruits offers a suite of digital tools designed to support peer review, contribution to group work and automated feedback.
FeedbackFruits is available through Blackboard Ultra. The integration can be found in the Course Tools.
To get started, visit the DEO FeedbackFruits dedicated page, where you will find information about support, guidance and training.
The ‘Getting started with FeedbackFruits’ self-paced course is also now available on Develop.
We look forward to supporting all colleagues who are interested in using FeedbackFruits. If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
Deletion of very old Blackboard courses (2015-16)
In line with the University’s Data Retention policy, we will be deleting all Blackboard unit courses from the academic year 2015-16 (and earlier). These courses are already unavailable to staff and students. The deletion will take place on September 1 – please contact the DEO (digital-education@bristol.ac.uk) before that date if you have any questions or concerns about this process. Once the courses are deleted, their content will no longer be available on our Blackboard system.
Questionmark upgrade successful
We are pleased to announce that our Questionmark on-demand system has been successfully upgraded to Next Gen Scheduling and is now available to staff and students. This upgrade introduces a new scheduling interface and an improved student assessment interface, which will enhance their exam experience.