Turnitin emergency maintenance today, Wednesday 6th April, 11 am

Posted on by Dan Wilson

Edit: Turnitin have advised us that the emergency maintenance is taking longer than anticipated.

To resolve the issue affecting Turnitin Feedback Studio, Turnitin have advised us that there will be emergency maintenance taking place today, Wednesday 6th April from 11:00 BST and is expected to last for an hour. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

You can stay up to date with Turnitin system status by visiting the Turnitin status page.

[Closed] Turnitin Feedback Studio issue

Posted on by Dan Wilson

This issue has now been resolved.

Turnitin have reported they are currently experiencing an unplanned service incident.

Staff using the Feedback Studio may experience intermittent errors.

We apologise for any inconvenience and will blog again when this issue has been resolved. You can also track this incident on the Turnitin status page.

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

Questionmark scheduled maintenance Saturday 16 April 2022 09:00- 21:00

Posted on by Roberta Perli

Dear colleagues,

Questionmark Scheduled Maintenance: Saturday 16 April 2022 –  09:00-21:00

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 all users may experience service disruptions. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

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

Xerte Server Upgrade Monday 11th April

Posted on by Martin Nutbeem

IT services will be upgrading the PHP version on our Xerte server between 8am and 9am, Monday 11th April.

This update will ensure the ongoing reliability and security of the service. Xerte will be unavailable for the duration of the upgrade. This work will not make changes to Xerte itself.

We will blog again when Xerte is available for staff and students.

H5P new content types available

Posted on by Chrysanthi Tseloudi

New content types are now available in H5P – a tool that enables you to easily create interactive resources to include in your Blackboard course. Some are still in beta and/or don’t have tutorials, examples or accessibility information yet, so explore them with some caution.

  • Structure Strip: provide students with a structured writing process
  • Cornell Notes: note-taking
  • AR Scavenger (beta): augmented reality content type that triggers 3D shapes or tasks when QR-code-like markers placed by authors in the real world are scanned with students’ devices.
  • Complex fill the blanks
  • Live engagement tools allow multiple people to participate. Look out for the green ‘multiple players’ icon.
    • Word cloud (beta): poll where users type in or select a response
    • Emoji Cloud (beta): poll where users select an emoji as a response
    • Multipoll (beta): poll for feedback or debates
    • The Chase (beta): engaging live competitions

You can find the new content types in the list that comes up when you select Add Content in H5P. See more information about how to create and insert H5P resources in your Blackboard course.

Posted in H5P

Xerte Upgrade Thursday 10th March

Posted on by Martin Nutbeem

Following advice from the Xerte Development Team, IT Services will be upgrading Xerte to version 3.10.5 between 7pm and 9pm on Thursday 10th March. During this time Xerte and resources hosted on the service will be unavailable, e.g. some learning resources will not be accessible on Blackboard.

This upgrade contains important and essential security updates. We apologise for the late notice and timing; however, the upgrade is essential to ensure Xerte remains a safe and secure tool for staff and students.

Questionmark scheduled maintenance Saturday 19 March 2022 09:00- 15:00

Posted on by Roberta Perli

Dear colleagues,

Questionmark Scheduled Maintenance: Saturday 19 March 2022 –  09:00-15:00

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 all users may experience service disruptions. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

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

Re/Play Service Update February 2022

Posted on by hilary

This post summarises the current status of the Re/Play service giving details of what is working, what has been fixed and any open issues.

Open issues are listed below and provide details of any workarounds that can be used and when a fix will be applied.

Background on incident which occurred on the 7th February and current status

A problem with access to Re/Play recordings was identified around midday on Monday 7th February. The issue involved students losing access to Re/Play materials accessed via the left-hand menu in Blackboard. This was resolved on the morning of Tuesday 8 February and has been working without incident since that time.

Please note the following features of Re/Play are currently working normally and being used intensively:

  • lecture capture and automated recordings of teaching
  • creation and upload of new materials
  • streaming of live lectures
  • student access to video content through channels, the Re/Play course menu item and via URL links to content.

Open issue

  • Links to materials copied from old courses not working and students being returned to Homepage after clicking a link to old content

There have been a small number of reports of issues when re-using content from previous years courses.

Work to resolve this issue is substantially complete. A final review was due to take place in the week commencing 21 February 2022 but has been put back due to industrial action. 

Workaround: A simple fix has been used by DEO and school staff to resolve this issue.

Resolved issues

  • Staff access to some TB1 2021 materials removed – From Monday 31st January staff may have been unable to access some TB1 21/22 materials housed in Re/Play. No content has been lost or deleted and student access is unaffected. This issue was resolved by the 24th March.
  • No access to Re/Play materials added via the “Build Content” menu option – resolved
  • Student access to materials embedded using iframes – resolved

Current situation and support

Despite the issues listed above our use of RePlay continues to be very strong, for example between 20 September and 22 November 2021 almost 253,000 hours of materials were watched by our students. This data underline the potential impact of issues and the criticality of the Re/Play service and we sincerely apologies for any stress and disruption to colleagues and our students.

For help and advice please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

 

 

[Resolved] Slow loading of Re/Play content

Posted on by Pete Herbert

We are pleased to announce that the issue with slow loading of Re/Play materials in Blackboard has been resolved. This means that all Re/Play material impacted is now accessible to students and search is not timing out.

Please accept our apologies for any difficulty this issue has caused you.

If you encounter any further issues, please email the Digital Education Office.