Blackboard unavailable 28th January, noon until 17:00

Posted on by Tel Team

To ensure that we are providing the best possible service to our users, our colleagues in IT Services need to undertake some maintenance work on Blackboard.

Blackboard will not be available to users between noon and 5 pm on Wednesday the 28th January to allow this work to be completed.

If you have any questions, or critical activity (eg submission deadlines or tests requiring Blackboard) scheduled during this time, please email tel-help@bristol.ac.uk.

To help us schedule this type of work, we use the “critical dates” information provided by our users. If you have not done so already, please forward to the email address above the following information about critical activities you are running using Blackboard or Questionmark Perception:

  • date of activity
  • time of activity
  • type of activity
  • course ID
  • number of students undertaking the activity
  • contact name and phone number.

TB2 Critical Dates for Blackboard and QMP

Posted on by Tel Team

We are currently collecting information on critical dates for Blackboard and QMP availability for TB2. Critical dates are those dates on which it is essential that Blackboard and QMP are available, for activities such as assignment submission.

Critical date information is very important to us. We use these dates to schedule downtime for essential maintenance to Blackboard and QMP, and other systems on which they depend with the least disruption to you and your students. The information also helps us and the IT Servicedesk to more effectively support students and staff in the event of an unexpected disruption to these systems or related services (such as MyBristol).

If you have not already done so, please could you send the following information about any critical dates for TB2 to tel-help@bristol.ac.uk

– date and time of activity (e.g. online submission deadline)
– type of activity (e.g. assignment submission, online exam)
– approximate number of students involved
– course names or IDs
– staff contact details
– system used e.g. Blackboard or Turnitin

Issue when editing Turnitin assignment post date

Posted on by Tel Team

We are currently investigating an issue with the Turnitin integration with the Blackboard Grade Centre.

If an instructor edits the Turnitin post date while the associated column in the Blackboard Grade Centre is hidden to students, it causes the relevant column to become visible to students allowing them to see their marks and feedback.

While we test a fix to this problem, when adding a Turnitin point please set the post date to a suitable future date and do not edit this until you are happy for marks and feedback to be released. If you do need to make any changes to the post date please ensure that you check the corresponding Grade Centre column to ensure your settings have been maintained.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

 

Critical Dates for TEL Systems

Posted on by Tel Team

If you know the dates of your Critical Activity on Blackboard or QMP until the end of August 2015, please forward them to TEL-Help@bristol.ac.uk

Please provide the following information:

* Course ID or name

* Date and time of activity

* Type of activity e.g. Submission, Exam

(For online assessment activity could you please include the following code – M for mock, A for assessment and E for final exam)

* Number of students sitting the exam/Submitting

* Room name or number where the activity will take place, along with a contact number (if applicable)

* Contact Name and phone number

This information is vital for the TEL Team to plan system maintenance and upgrade.

TEL workshops for staff

Posted on by Roger Gardner

Places are now available on TEL workshops for staff in the New Year.  These include:

  • Introduction to Blackboard for administrative and support staff
  • Introduction to Blackboard for academic staff (including research staff)
  • TEL essentials

For further information and booking please see the “Training and events” section of the TEL website.

Blackboard unavailable – 12th November Noon – 17:00

Posted on by Tel Team

To ensure that we are providing the best possible service to our users, our colleagues in IT Services need to undertake some maintenance work on Blackboard.

Blackboard will not be available to users between noon and 17.00 on the 12th November, to allow this work to be completed.

If you have any questions, or critical activity (eg submission deadlines or tests requiring Blackboard) during this time, please email tel-help@bristol.ac.uk.

To help us schedule this type of work, we use the “critical dates” information provided by our users. If you have not done so already, please forward to the email address above the following information about critical activities you are running using Blackboard or QMP:

  • date of activity
  • time of activity
  • type of activity
  • course ID
  • number of students undertaking the activity
  • contact name and phone number.

Issues with feedback in Turnitin Grademark

Posted on by Tel Team
Some staff and/or students may have noticed issues with feedback provided in Turnitin Grademark over the past day or so. We have reported these to Turnitin and they have today responded as follows:
 “Some users have reported a display issue with the downloaded PDF format of their Originality and GradeMark reports. The text may be misaligned, and some highlights or GradeMark comments may be missing, also within GradeMark reports the voice comments are inaccessible possibly due to a save error. Our engineering team is currently investigating the issue, and any updates will be provided as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
 Until we hear back from Turnitin that the issues are fixed we suggest that:

1. Staff use only text feedback (not audio)
2. Students view their feedback online rather than on printout