IT Services have identified network problems which mean we are currently experiencing some difficulties with external websites including Mediasite, Turnitin, mobile services, in-line grading and some blogs and wikis. Please be aware that access to on-line marking, feedback and uploading of submissions may be affected by this problem.
Please see the IT Services pages for updates: https://www.bris.ac.uk/it-services/news/2015/networkproblems8dec.html
Blackboard was unavailable for a short period this morning and is now back up and running properly. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused by this interruption in provision and are working with the supplier to identify the cause in order to prevent any further outages.
Many apologies for the problems experienced with Blackboard this afternoon. The service is now back up and running.
TEL Team
Blackboard is currently unavailable, we are working to resume service as soon as possible.
Your school may have requested one or more “hub courses”. These are Blackboard courses that have students from more than one SITS unit on them, often to avoid adding duplicate content.
The original SITS courses still exist, although they are unavailable to students by default. However, there are a number of University tools that only work (or work best) in the SITS courses, including:
These tools are generally NOT available in the hub courses. If you use these features, you will need to make the SITS courses available.
As an Instructor, you would add your resources to the hub course, and the related SITS courses should only be used to make the above tools available.
Please click on the image for a further explanation:
As an Instructor, if under “My courses” on your Blackboard home page you see “not currently available” or “unavailable” after the course, this means the course is unavailable to students. Instructors can still access and edit the course.
Once your course is ready for students to use, ensure that it is made available as follows:
Your course is now available to students.
Or use the Qwickly tool on your home page
Click Course Availability and turn the On/Off button next to the course to the required state.
The Blackboard course roll-over is now complete. You will see a new Blackboard course for every SITS unit that is running next year – these are in the format HISP21309_2015
You will find it much easier to distinguish between courses for different academic years by using these instructions “Group your courses by year: learn how to simplify your My Courses in 18 seconds.”
All new courses are created as “Unavailable” so students will not be able to see them yet. When you wish to switch them on simply look for the course availability on the “Qwickly” module on the home page of Blackboard and switch the course to “On”.
Also this year you will see an additional hidden menu item at the bottom of your menu called “Reading List”. From this menu you will be able to upload your reading list for library staff to access it and when the reading list has been uploaded it will appear on the page for students to see. See this message from the library
“A reminder that the University is undertaking an early implementation of a reading list management policy, as reading lists are currently provided to students and library staff in a variety of ways leading to inconsistent student experience. The early implementation uses Blackboard to help provide reading lists in a uniform manner. More information can be found using the ereserves/reading list tab in Blackboard.”
All staff will have been added to the new versions of courses that they were attached to last year. Students are being added as they are enrolled on SITS.
We also provide “Hub” courses for areas where more than one Unit code of students are being taught together – we are in the process of copying last years Hub courses and these should be available early next week.
Places are now available on Blackboard workshops for staff in June:
If you are unable to attend, but would like a basic introduction to Blackboard, please contact tel-help@bristol.ac.uk to request a test Blackboard course. We will then provide you with a practice course and instructions on getting started.
There are also support materials from Blackboard , and video tutorials.
If you are interested in a Blackboard or other TEL workshop tailored to local requirements for yourself and colleagues please also get in touch with tel-help@bristol.ac.uk.
As part of work towards the development of a new Data Centre, work is needed to upgrade the current data centre network in the Computer Centre. This work will take place on Tuesday 14 April between 8.00am-9.00am. The work will result in a short break in connections affecting almost all University systems and services eg. websites, Single Sign On and will include a break in internet and wireless access. The break should be short but services are considered at risk during this time.
IT Services apologise for any inconvenience that may be caused.