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Xerte upgrade 17th December

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IT Services will be upgrading Xerte to version 3.13 between 8am and 1pm on Tuesday 17th December. During this time, Xerte resources will be unavailable to staff and students. We apologise for any inconvenience this causes.

This upgrade brings security updates and improved functionality, including:

  • New page types including Audio Recorder and Compare Images
  • Enhancements to existing functionality
  • Editor enhancement

You can read the full set of upgrade features and enhancements on the 3.13 release notes page.

We will update the blog when Xerte is available again. If you have any questions, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

Questionmark OnDemand Scheduled Maintenance 16 November 2024 09:00 – 15:00

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Questionmark will be carrying out scheduled maintenance on Saturday 16 November between 09:00 and 15:00.

The purpose of the maintenance is to deploy system updates to ensure the ongoing reliability, security and up time of the platform.

During this time users may experience service disruption. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

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

New Item Notifications

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We have been made aware of reports that some users have been receiving multiple email notifications regarding new items available on the courses they are enrolled on.

We have contacted Blackboard (Anthology) and they have acknowledged this as an issue and are investigating the cause. They have advised that this was a one off incident and it shouldn’t occur again.

If you have been a recipient of these emails we apologise for any inconvenience caused.

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

 

[Closed] Turnitin AI detection interruption of service

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It has come to our attention that the AI writing detection reports in Turnitin LTI were not generated for submissions made between 1 August and 5 August. We are currently investigating this issue with the supplier and will provide updates as soon as we receive further information from their support team.

In the meantime, if your course has been affected and you need to regenerate these reports, please contact us at digital-education@bristol.ac.uk, providing a list of the affected courses and their respective submission points.

[Open] Turnitin error: ‘Invalid or missing state’

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We are aware that some users are seeing the error message ‘Invalid or missing state’ when trying to access Turnitin. This issue has been reported to Turnitin; the following workarounds should re-enable access.

If using Safari or Firefox, we recommend that users try accessing Turnitin via Chrome or Microsoft Edge in the first instance.

If the error persists, we ask that instructors edit their Turnitin assignments to open in the same tab as the Blackboard page. To do this:

  • Click on the chevron next to the Turnitin assignment and select Edit
  • Scroll 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.

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

Updates to Padlet Moderation and Roles

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Padlet has recently made some changes which may impact on your usage.

Safety Net moderation
Padlet has introduced a moderation feature called ‘Safety Net’ to block inappropriate comments. This will not alter any existing Padlets, but will impact on new Padlets. By default, all new Padlets are now given the moderation setting ‘Auto’, which applies the feature.  If a post is considered to be inappropriate, the Padlet owner will be emailed for approval before the Padlet is made publicly available. If working in a live environment, the post will be flagged directly on the Padlet for the owner to approve.  If you find that Padlet is blocking comments you wish to include, the moderation settings can be altered in the ‘Content’ section of your Padlet’s settings.

Learn more about this in Padlet’s blog or read our guidance in order to learn how to change your moderation settings.

Change to roles in Padlet
Padlet has introduced a new role called “Commenter”, which will only allow visitors to comment on posts and not to edit or add new posts. Alongside this, anyone with the “Reader” permission will no longer be able to to comment.

Xerte upgrade 4th June – MCG feedback issue identified.

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An issue has been identified with Xerte, in which it fails to show feedback for multiple-choice questions in limited circumstances. To resolve this issue we are planning an upgrade to the latest version on 4th June between 8am and 1pm.

During this time, Xerte resources will be unavailable to staff and students. We apologise for any inconvenience this causes.

[RESOLVED] Advisory message about Blackboard email services outage: check emails sent last night.

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We were informed of a temporary outage of Blackboard email services after close of business yesterday (08 May 2024). This issue affected all Blackboard email services globally, including any Blackboard notifications that were also sent as emails and the production of submission receipts.

Whilst the service has now been restored, we advise you to check and resend any Blackboard emails you attempted to send yesterday.

[OPEN] Blackboard Full Grade Centre Not Downloading Correctly

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Blackboard’s “Work Offline” function, which allows you to download a spreadsheet of the Grade Centre, is currently not working as intended. When you attempt to download the Full Grade Centre of a course, some columns that are present online are not downloaded in the spreadsheet. This may affect workflows with offline or in-person assessments.

We have advised the supplier of this issue and they are investigating. In the meantime, the following steps can be followed as a workaround.

Workaround:

  1. Go to Full Grade Centre.
  2. Go to Manage.
  3. Click Create Smart View.
  4. Enter “ALL USERS” into the “Name” field.
  5. Select the box for “Add as favorite“
  6. Set “Type of view” to “User“
  7. Set “Select Criteria” to “All Users“
  8. Click “Submit“.

This should produce a Smart View that contains all of the columns in the course. Navigate to this smart view and download it as you would normally, choosing to display or not to display hidden info, selecting specific columns, etc., as required.