Recommended settings and backup plans for Blackboard test exams

Posted on by Hanrahan Highland

In the light of the technical issues experienced on Monday, we would recommend that Blackboard tests in the 2021 Summer Exam period do not use ‘force completion’ and have ‘auto-submit’ turned off. Schools should also carefully consider whether the use of restricted time windows in which students are allowed to start an exam is necessary and should contact the Digital Education Office for further advice if they are planning to use these.  

Following this advice this will help ensure that students have time to complete an exam in the event of a technical failure.  

This is in addition to our existing advice that all assessments should have a backup plan for use in the event of a technical problem (for example, wait for the issue to resolve and proceed with the exam, reschedule the assessment, use an alternative format such as a downloadable copy of the exam). Students should always be advised in advance what the backup plan for their assessment will be. 

Blackboard notifications turned off

Posted on by Hanrahan Highland

As a precautionary measure, while Blackboard are investigating the root cause of the incident yesterday morning, we have turned off notifications in Blackboard. These are alerts that normally appear on the Notifications Dashboard tab on the Blackboard Home page, or in optional modules in individual courses, reminding you about items (such as assignments, tests or marks) that are newly available.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this causes.

Update for students re the Blackboard technical issues impacting exams

Posted on by hilary

Shortly before 10 am this morning Blackboard had a technical problem. While some students could access Blackboard, for many it was either slow or unavailable for up to 45 minutes. We apologise for the inconvenience and upset caused by this and would like to reassure all students that no student will be disadvantaged by this morning’s events.

This morning’s issue has been resolved. You should expect all your remaining assessments to run to their scheduled dates and times

Tansy Jessop

PVC Education

[This message has also been emailed to UG and PGT, added to MyBristol Portal, internal comms screens and social media]

Re/Play links in Blackboard

Posted on by Pete Herbert

Following on from the work completed last week to restore the Re/Play service we are currently seeing links in the left hand menu and the tools in content areas being unavailable. We will be working to restore these across all courses but this will not be completed until later today.

If you or your students need access before this these can be switched on a course by course basis –

  • Navigate to the course and open the course management menu
  • Select Customisation and tool availability
  • Scroll down until you see the Mediasite settings and tick boxes as shown in the image below
  • Submit

NB if you have a link in the left hand menu you will need to select hide link from the contextual menu and then show link for this to become visible to students.

 

Mediasite Blackboard settings

Issue bulk downloading assignments affecting some staff (including for file upload exams)

Posted on by digitaleducation

A small number of staff have reported an issue downloading Blackboard assignments using the bulk-download tool in Course Tools > Download Assignments.  Having selected the relevant assignment and students, when clicking ‘Submit’ the expected zip file download does not appear. Blackboard have been informed and are investigating as a matter of urgency. 

What to do if you experience this

Clearing Blackboard cookies has been shown to resolve this issue.  Please follow the instructions below to clear cookies, then try downloading again. If you continue to experience problems, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Chrome 

  1. On your computer, open Chrome. 
  2. At the top right, click the three dots and then Settings. 
  3. Under ‘Privacy and security’, click Cookies and other site data. 
  4. Click See all cookies and site data. 
  5. At the top right, search for ole. 
  6. To the right of ‘www.ole.bris.ac.uk’, click the bin icon. 
  7. Close all instances of Chrome and Edge. 
  8. Reopen Chrome, log in to Blackboard and try the download again. 

 Edge 

  1. On your computer, open Edge. 
  2. At the top right, click the three dots and then Settings. 
  3. Under ‘Cookies and Site Permissions’, click  Manage and delete cookies and site data. 
  4. Click  See all cookies and site data. 
  5. At the top right, search for ole. 
  6. Click the down-arrow next to ‘bris.ac.uk’. 
  7. To the right of ‘www.ole.bris.ac.uk’, click the bin icon. 
  8. Close all instances of Edge and Chrome. 
  9. Reopen Edge, log in to Blackboard and try the download again. 

Apologies for any disruption caused. We will provide updates on this blog as soon as we have them.

My Re/Play connection issues – 21 May

Posted on by Martin Nutbeem

Further to yesterday’s post about connectivity issues to My Re/Play via Blackboard, we have added a temporary link for staff to access their Re/Play materials onto the My Re/Play tab.  

When you click on the My Re/Play tab, you will now see a link which should give access to Mediasite (the software for Re/Play).  

If prompted to, click on the grey ‘Authenticate’ button. You will be taken to the University’s Single Sign On page where you can log on using your normal UoB credentials. Once you have located the presentation you wish to share, click the ‘title’, then ‘share presentation’ and then the green ‘copy’ button next to ‘quick link’. You can then share this via email or as a direct link in Blackboard. 

We are working with Blackboard and Mediasite to fix this issue and will provide updates via this blog. 

Re/Play connection issues – 20 May update

Posted on by Pete Herbert

We are now experiencing problems with staff accessing the ‘My Re/Play’ tab in Blackboard. We would like to confirm that this has not further affected student playback – students can still view content embedded into Blackboard, but not content added using Blackboard tools.

If you need to share recordings with your students urgently, it is possible to log directly in to Re/Play

If you are not logged directly in to the Re/Play (Mediasite) Service, click on the grey ‘Authenticate’ button. You will be taken to the University’s Single Sign On page where you can log on using your normal UoB credentials. Once you have located the presentation you wish to share, click the ‘title’, then ‘share presentation’ and then the green ‘copy’ button next to ‘quick link’. You can then share this via email or as a direct link in Blackboard.

We are working with Blackboard to fix this issue overnight tonight, and we will be testing to check the fix has worked before 9 am tomorrow.