Our colleagues in IS have completed the work scheduled for this morning and Blackboard is now back online.
If you have any questions please contact the TEL Team by email TEL-Help@bristol.ac.uk.
Urgent Blackboard Downtime – Tuesday 3rd September 2013 – 7 – 11am
As part of our program of work to improve the Blackboard service for our users our colleagues in IT Services will be carrying out work on the servers that support Blackboard.
This work will take place on Tuesday 3rd September between 7 and 11am the service will not be available during this time.
We are hopeful that Blackboard will be available before 11am and will post an announcement via this blog.
Please note this work is in addition to our scheduled maintenance windows – more information here
Apologies for the short notice – if you have any questions please email TEL-Help@bristol.ac.uk
An issue has been identified that can affect assessments taken in Questionmark Perception using Internet Explorer 9. If the “Use graphic” option is selected when creating a Matching or Ranking question, images in the assessment may not be displayed. This issue has been reported to Questionmark and they are investigating.
Currently, we are recommending that, if a QMP assessment might be taken using the Internet Explorer 9 browser, you do not use the “Use graphic” option in Matching and Ranking questions. Please contact us if you have any questions about this, or for further advice.
Blackboard Maintenance Windows – system unavailable
For five weeks prior to the start of the new academic year we will be scheduling a maintenance window from 8-9am on the following Thursday mornings –
29th August
5th September
12th September
19th September
26th September
These windows will allow us and our colleagues in IS to ensure the system is in the best shape for the coming academic year.
If you have any questions please email Tel-Help@bristol.ac.uk
Friday 9th August – Questionmark Perception Maintenance
The Questionmark maintenance work carried out on the 9th of August was completed successfully. The work was required to improve the reliability and the speed of the system.
Friday 9th August – Questionmark Perception unavailable
On Friday 9th August Questionmark will be unavailable to users due to essential maintenance.
If you have any questions please email TEL-Help@bristol.ac.uk
TEL Help Desk email problem – 1st – 5th August.
We have been experiencing problems receiving emails in to Topdesk (between 1st August – 5th August).
This problem has now been resolved. If you sent us an email during this time and have not had a response please forward on to us at TEL-Help@bristol.ac.uk and we will respond as quickly as we can.
Blackboard 2013 upgrade complete
The main part of the 2013 summer upgrade to Blackboard version SP11 has been completed successfully. We hope you find the new look an improvement.
Part of the upgrade has been to provide copies of SITS unit courses. This means that you may see 2012-13 courses as well as 2013 versions of these unit courses in the “My Courses” box on your Blackboard home page. Historic and current versions are clearly identified by a year suffix in the course name, and you can organise these so 2012-13 and 2013 SITS units show separately by using “Terms”. Instructions on how to do this are at: https://blackboard.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/?p=1276
The temporary replacement service used during the upgrade is no longer available to users. If you need to access data from this please contact tel-help@bristol.ac.uk
Further information about the upgrade is on the TEL website: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/esu/e-learning/projects/bbupgrade2013/
If you have any questions or would like to book a Blackboard roadshow please email tel-help@bristol.ac.uk
Blackboard Upgrade Summer 2013
The summer 2013 upgrade is currently still running. We are just making final changes to the new courses for the coming academic year. Our current plan is to have the full version of Blackboard online by 2pm.
Apologies for any inconvenience this may be causing you. If you have any questions please email TEL-help@bristol.ac.uk
Blackboard upgrade – Retention centre for monitoring course activity and participation
As part of this summer’s upgrade, Blackboard will have a new feature called the “Retention Centre”. This allows Instructors to monitor activity and participation in courses, including marks, missed deadlines, course access, and other criteria which staff can set themselves. It can be accessed within each course Control Panel and also from the new “Global Navigation Menu“.
A 4 minute video tutorial on the Retention Centre is available.
To find out more about this or any of the other Blackboard enhancements this summer:
- come along to a dropin session
- book a Blackboard roadshow for your team, Department, School or Faculty – contact tel-help@bristol.ac.uk
- visit our upgrade webpage
This summer’s upgrade will take place between Tuesday 30th July (starting at 9am ) and Monday 5th August (midday). A temporary replacement service will be available during this time.