On Saturday 17 August between 14:00 – 22:00 BST, Turnitin will be performing maintenance on their system. During this small window of time, Turnitin will be unavailable. You can stay up to date with the Turnitin system status on the Turnitin status page. We apologise for any inconvenience.
[Closed] Turnitin service incident, 9 August
Turnitin has informed us that the Feedback Studio is currently experiencing an unexpected service incident.
During this time, users may intermittently find that Similarity Reports are stuck processing or encounter issues when attempting to download a copy of a Similarity Report and/or digital receipt.
Further information is available on the Turnitin status page.
If you have any concerns or questions, please contact us by emailing digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
[Open] PowerPoint files with grouped images display incorrectly in Blackboard Annotate
An error has been identified in Blackboard Annotate that can affect the display of submitted Microsoft Power Point (PPTX) documents containing grouped images. The error rearranges the images displayed in the Annotate interface, affecting the marker’s view of the document.
Blackboard developers are aware of the error. However, they cannot fix the issue, as it depends on third-party software beyond their control.
This error affects the DEO’s “Blackboard Online” workflow, and we have updated the recommendations in our EMA – Blackboard Online Workflow guidance to remind users that Blackboard Annotate works better when files are submitted in PDF format. While students can still submit documents in other formats, we cannot guarantee that footnotes, grouped images, and styling will be displayed correctly.
[Closed] Turnitin AI detection interruption of service
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.
Timestamp column in Turnitin Feedback Studio
Turnitin has resolved a formatting issue that was affecting the display of information in the assignment inbox. This improvement has resulted in the removal of timestamps from the ‘uploaded’ column. Submission timestamps are now visible only when hovering over the submission date or by downloading the Grade Report from the assignment inbox.
Please note that late submissions will still be highlighted in red.
If you have any questions or concerns, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
Questionmark OnDemand Scheduled Maintenance 17 August 2024 09:00 – 15:00
Questionmark will be carrying out scheduled maintenance on Saturday 17 August 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
Qwickly Attendance tool removal
As the university has implemented the Check in Facility via the University app Attendance Check-in the Qwickly Attendance tool has been removed from Blackboard, as highlighted in the Education Administration Bulletin 23rd July 2024.
If you have any concerns about the discontinued please contact faculty-product-owners@bristol.ac.uk
Changes to the Flip video app
Microsoft discontinued the video discussion app Flip on 1 July, and it is now in view-only mode. If you wish to download your past Flip videos, you can do so until 30 September 2024.
The Flip camera has been integrated into Teams and is available in Classes. To create a Flip video in Teams Classes:
- Select Classwork,
- Add module,
- Add resource (+),
- then add as either a New File or a New Assignment.
If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
Change in Blackboard pop-up support
The tool we use to provide pop-up support and guidance within Blackboard is changing on Thursday 1 August. This means that the pop-up messages you sometimes see in Blackboard may look a little different, but can still be easily removed by clicking on the ‘x’ in the top right-hand corner.
Please note that this also means you will no longer see ‘Eesysoft course reports’ within Blackboard. If you require additional data that was previously available within the course reports, please contact the Digital Education Office on digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
Additionally, you will no longer see an option for “UoB support” within Blackboard. This previously appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of Blackboard when you clicked on the question mark in a speech bubble, which is shown below. You will still see the question mark and can access Blackboard’s help pages by selecting ‘Blackboard support’ and going into ‘Blackboard Help’.
Please refer to our online guides or contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk if you have any queries.
New Turnitin support centre
Turnitin has released a new Turnitin Help Center. Users will be able to access past cases through the old support centre until 20 September 2024. After this date, access to the old support centre will no longer be available.
If you have any questions about this change, or would like to know more, please refer to Turnitin’s Frequently Asked Questions page, or contact us at digital.education@bristol.ac.uk.