VCU - Technology Services

Bb Regularly Scheduled Downtimes for the 2009 Fall Semester will change slightly

As some of you are aware we have had a regularly scheduled maintenance period for Blackboard for the second and fourth Friday's of the month from 4pm to midnight for approximately the last four years. We don't always use both time slots but have had them available. We have revisited the usage statistics and it still appears that Friday evening will have the least amount of impact. We do realize there are programs that run only Friday evenings and Saturdays. In an effort to have less of an impact on the Friday evening classes we will make every effort to use only one of the Friday's of the month for a downtime. The fourth Friday, if needed, will start at 8pm instead of 4pm.

We also have made an effort in the past to not interfere with major academic dates (first week of classes, last day to add/drop, mid-terms, finals). At this point, we have looked at the 2009 fall semester academic calendar and have posted to the VCU events calendar (http://go.vcu.edu/Bbmaintenance) the dates that we have available for maintenance. Once we can estimate the amount of the scheduled time needed we will update the event description in the VCU events calendar.

Bb Downtime schedule as of August 12, 2009 for the 2009 fall semester (subject to change):

Bb maintenance dates that are NOT scheduled to be used during the 2009 Fall semester

• August 28 - 8pm to midnight (not scheduled to be used)
• September 11 - 4pm to midnight (not scheduled to be used)
• October 23 - 8pm to midnight (not scheduled to be used)
• November 27 - 8pm to midnight (not scheduled to be used)
• December 11 - 4pm to midnight (not scheduled to be used)
• December 25 - 8pm to midnight (not scheduled to be used)

Bb maintenance dates that may be used during the 2009 Fall semester

• August 14 - 4pm to midnight (will be used - estimate the entire time will be needed)
• September 25 - 8pm to midnight
• October 9 - 4pm to midnight
• November 13 - 4pm to midnight

For more information, there is a module labeled "VCU Bb7 Maintenance Schedule" that is always available under the "My Blackboard" tab after you log in to Blackboard. This module is kept up-to-date with the current months maintenance dates/times, a link to the Blackboard System Announcements blog (http://blog.vcu.edu/blackboard), and a link to the VCU events calendar (http://go.vcu.edu/Bbmaintenance).

Thank you,

Blackboard Team
blackboard@vcu.edu