Blackboard course roll-over 2015 complete

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.

Turnitin “Email Non-Submitters” link should not be used

A new link has been automatically added to Turnitin assignment inboxes in Blackboard, giving Instructors the option to “Email Non-Submitters”. Unfortunately, this feature does not currently work with all versions of the Blackboard/Turnitin integration – including the one used at the University of Bristol. Turnitin’s engineering team is planning to remove the link, where it doesn’t work, in the future. In the meantime, instructors should ignore it. Turnitin apologize for any inconvenience.

Turnitin service alert 20 July 2015

Turnitin have issued the following announcement about an issue users may have encountered on the 18th, 19th and 20th July, 2015: 

“Some users may have encountered an issue with the Turnitin and TurnitinUK services on the 18th, 19th and 20th of July, 2015.
Images and buttons within the Turnitin service, including the assignment submission page within Turnitin may not have loaded correctly.
This issue may have prevented student users from being able to submit work.
The issue was resolved on the 20th of July, 2015 at 01.15 PST. We apologize for any inconvenience that may have been caused.”

Further information about Turnitin Service status is at:

http://www.turnitinuk.com/en_gb/support/system-status

Blackboard upgrade complete

The Blackboard upgrade has been completed ahead of schedule and the production service will be switched on again at 11.15am. Users may be prompted to log in again at that time.

If , after production is switched on , you need to access the temporary replacement service which has been in use from 13 July:

  1. You must access the service via the UoB network, i.e. you either need to be on-site, or  via Remote access.
  2. Login at : https://bb-tc-t1.isys.bris.ac.uk

The replacement service will be available until 24th July in the first instance.

For more information on new and improved features in Blackboard please see the TEL website.  If you have any queries please contact tel-help@bristol.ac.uk

Phishing emails appearing to be from Blackboard

Some users have reported receiving the following emails from the “Blackboard Learn system”:

 

Blackboard Learn™
Bristol Courses System Update.

You have received a new update from Blackboard Learn system about your new
course form-871.

Please view this update and fill the process form Urgent.

View update <http://hyperurl.co/testexamspa>

These are not genuine. Please do not respond, and refer to IT Services guidance on phishing emails.

9th July – problem accessing Blackboard Grade Centre

Unfortunately there is currently a problem accessing the Full Grade Centre in Blackboard when using Chrome. Until this is fixed the workaround is to use Internet Explorer.

Users may also experience problems accessing the Content System tab and the Personal Learning Space when using Chrome. Again please use Internet Explorer until the issue is resolved.

Apologies for this. IT Services are working with Blackboard to resolve the issue.