« April 2007 | Main | June 2007 »
Some students were not able to access their Blackboard courses between 10:00am and 4:45pm on Monday, May 28.
There was an issue with the daily enrollment feeds to Blackboard.
A fix is being put in place in an effort to avoid this problem in the future.
As a result of the upgrade there is some fine tuning that needs to be done to the Blackboard database. The system will not be available on Thursday morning from 6am to 7am, May 24, 2007.
Technology Services Help Desk Contact Information
Phone: 828-2227
Email: blackboard@vcu.edu
Help ticket: http://www.ts.vcu.edu/helpdesk/
Blackboard FAQ: http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/
• Blackboard User’s Group – Thursday – May 24
• Blackboard Regularly Scheduled Maintenance – Friday – May 25
Blackboard User’s Group
Presenter: Jeff Nugent, Associate Director, Center for Teaching Excellence
Topic: Merlot – Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching
Place: Cabell Library – Room B-35
Date: Thursday, May 24, 2007
Time: Noon – 1pm
Sheila Chandler will spend a few moments updating the group on the Blackboard upgrade performed last week.
Blackboard Regularly Scheduled Maintenance
Bb regularly scheduled maintenance (second and fourth Friday of the month) is Friday, May 25. The maintenance will begin at 6pm and should only effect the collaboration tool (Bb option = Communication – Collaboration). There is network maintenance scheduled for Friday night (6pm - 2am) and is not suppose to effect Bb but anytime the network is being worked on there is a possibly of interruption of service.
The Blackboard application was restarted at 1:17pm on Monday, May 21.
- Bb and the VCU Bb team fixed a problem with a background procedure that was causing the system to be non-responsive.
-Blackboard system stopped being responsive around 10:35am.
-Blackboard database appeared to be having some issues.
-VCU database administrator is looking at the problem.
-Bb Support has been contacted and they are working with the VCU Database Administrator.
Blackboard was down as parameter changes were made that required a restart.
The Blackboard system is running. The database is having some performance issues and is being looked at by Blackboard.
Blackboard was restarted so that a system parameter related to the upgrade could take affect.
Subject: Bb 7.1 upgrade completed – Report any problems to blackboard@vcu.edu
The Bb upgrade completed on Friday, May 18.
Please report any problems to blackboard@vcu.edu. This email account with be monitored on Saturday, May 19 and Sunday, May 20. Due to graduation the Help Desk will not be open on Saturday. The Help Desk will be open normal hours on Sunday from 1pm to 4pm. Please note there is maintenance being performed on Sunday morning from 8am to 10am to the eID system, which we are told may cause a momentary interruption when logging into system that use the VCU eID.
If we see any problems we will post them to http://blog.vcu.edu/blackboard.
Documentation on the new Bb 7.1 features that are part of this upgrade can be found by:
1. Logging into Bb
2. Click on Content System Tab
3. Click on Institution Content
4. Click on LMS Documentation
5. Click on Bb Version 7 Documentation
New – Scholar tab (social bookmarking tool)
1. Click on Scholar Tab (or from a Course – Tools – My Scholar Home or Scholar Course Home)
2. Click on Help ( top right of Scholar screen)
The Bb Team appreciates the understanding of the VCU community during the times the system has to be down to perform upgrades and maintenance.
I would like to thank the Bb team of individuals that worked day and night to ensure this upgrade was completed as quickly and as smoothly as possible. Thank you to everyone who helped with the planning process and the roll-out.
For further assistance:
Technology Services Help Desk Contact Information
Phone: 828-2227
Email: blackboard@vcu.edu
Help ticket: http://www.ts.vcu.edu/helpdesk/
Blackboard FAQ: http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/
Training
http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/training/it/search.asp (Enter keyword: Blackboard)
Regards,
Blackboard Team
Blackboard Upgrade status – Friday, May 18, 2007 - 6am
-The Bb Team has been monitoring the upgrade.
-The database conversion portion of the upgrade started 5/15/07 at 7:07am.
-The database conversion is still running and progressing as expected.
-The three laragest tables in the database finished converting 5/17/07.
-Stored procedures in the database are now updating. - Completed
-Database reindexing - Completed
-Application patch being applied to 8 servers
Upgrade is on target to complete by midnight Friday night May 18.
Blackboard Upgrade status – Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 10:30pm
-The Bb Team has been monitoring the upgrade.
-The database conversion portion of the upgrade started 5/15/07 at 7:07am.
-The database conversion is still running and progressing as expected.
-The three laragest tables in the database finished converting this morning.
-Stored procedures in the database are now updating. - Complete
-Database reindexing
Upgrade is on target to complete by midnight Friday night May 18.
Blackboard Upgrade status – Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 10:23am
-The Bb Team has been monitoring the upgrade.
-The database conversion portion of the upgrade started 5/15/07 at 7:07am.
-The database conversion is still running and progressing as expected.
-The three laragest tables in the database finished converting this morning.
-Stored procedures in the database are now updating.
Upgrade is on target to complete by midnight Friday night May 18.
Blackboard Upgrade status – Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 5pm
-The Bb Team has been monitoring the upgrade.
-The database conversion portion of the upgrade started 5/15/07 at 7:07am.
-The database conversion is still running and progressing as expected.
Blackboard Upgrade status – Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 8:00am
-The Bb Team has been monitoring the upgrade.
-The database conversion portion of the upgrade started 5/15/07 at 7:07am.
-The database conversion is still running and progressing as expected.
Blackboard Upgrade status – Tuesday, May, 15, 2007 – 5 p.m.
The Bb Team has been monitoring the upgrade and the database conversion is progressing. The database conversion portion of the upgrade started 5/15/07 at 7:07am.
Blackboard Upgrade status – Tuesday, May, 15, 2007 – 8 a.m.
- The Bb Team worked until 2:30am performing the preliminary steps to begin the database conversion portion of the upgrade.
- From 2:30am to 6:30 processes ran. Bb Team took a nap!
- At 7:07am the database conversion was started. This step is expected to take at a minimum 72 hours.
The Bb sytem is down and the upgrade is expected to take all week (May 14-18). Status messages will be posted periodically during the week to this blog.
Blackboard will be unavailable May 14-18 (one week from today) during an upgrade to version 7.
For further assistance contact:
Technology Services Help Desk Contact Information
Phone: 828-2227
Email: help@vcu.edu
Help ticket: http://www.ts.vcu.edu/helpdesk/
Bb Training/Instructional Assistance
http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/training/it/search.asp (enter Keyword: Blackboard)
Center for Teaching Excellence - http://www.vcu.edu/cte/