Bb Maintenance (9/28/07) Completed at 7:30pm
The Friday, September 28, 2007, maintenance was completed by 7:30pm.
The Blackboard Team
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The Friday, September 28, 2007, maintenance was completed by 7:30pm.
The Blackboard Team
Blackboard Maintenance Complete - Friday, Sept 28th at 7:30 PM
Subject: Please note: Blackboard unavailable between 5pm and 5:30pm today (9/26/07)
Some of the Blackboard application servers will be stopped and started today (Wednesday, September 26, 2007) between 5pm and 5:30pm. You may be kicked off of the system during this time. We have put a change in place that requires a restart for the change to take effect. We hope this change will help with the problem of time-outs that some of you have been experiencing.
Your patience is greatly appreciated,
Blackboard Team
For further assistance contact:
Technology Services Help Desk
Phone: 828-2227
Email: blackboard@vcu.edu
Help ticket: http://www.ts.vcu.edu/helpdesk/
Blackboard FAQ: http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/
A Blackboard downtime will be observed from 4PM to Midnight, July 27, 2007.
Blackboard Maintenance is the second and fourth Friday of the month.
(Information obtained from email from Softchalk - LessonBuilder)
Presentations from Innovators in Online Learning
Want to track the time a student spends on a lesson? Register now for Tuesday's Blackboard and LessonBuilder integration webinar.
Want to know how a single person created 1000 pages of content in 8 months? Register now for Thursday's Innovators in Online Learning webinar about engaging at-risk students online!
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Using Online Learning to Successfully Engage at-risk Students
Heartland Area Education Agency in Johnston, Iowa
Thursday, September 27
11am PT | Noon MT | 1 pm CT | 2 pm ET
In this session, Gene Behrens, Professional Development and Leadership Consultant, at Heartland Area Education Agency in Johnston, Iowa, will describe how they have worked with at-risk students that have had a history of resisting reading and writing instruction. Softchalk LessonBuilder has been used to create interactive supplemental reading and writing activities for at risk students in shelters and a juvenile detention program. Participants will be able to see how LessonBuilder's interactive activities (Seek a Word, ordering, short answer, sorting, matching, and crossword puzzles) have successfully reinforced student learning.
Special Partners Webinars!
Integrating LessonBuilder Content with Blackboard
Tuesday , September 25
10 am PT | 11 am MT | Noon CT | 1 pm ET
Integrating LessonBuilder Content with Angel Learning
Tuesday, October 30
10 am PT | 11 am MT | Noon CT | 1 pm ET
===============================================
Our LessonBuilder Introductory Webinars....
A 45 minute presentation introduces the key features of SoftChalk LessonBuilder. We will view sample lessons, and then demonstrate how the lesson content was created using SoftChalk LessonBuilder. The session ends with a question and answer period.
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Take any one of our six 2-hour online Short Courses - in any order - and know what our experts know!! For more information go to http://www.softchalk.com/training
Please feel free to forward this invitation to any of your colleagues who may have an interest in creating more engaging on-line lessons for their students.
Please contact us with questions or concerns.
The SoftChalk Team
team@softchalk.com
www.softchalk.com
877-727-5548 (toll free USA/Canada)
Blackboard (Bb) Issues addressed in this entry:
-Bb Student Roster containing students that have withdrawn
-Quizzes locking in Bb
Bb Student Roster containing students that have Withdrawn
Since the beginning of the Fall semester a new process is being used that feeds the student enrollment data to Bb from Banner. It has come to our attention that we were not processing student enrollment data for withdrawals correctly in Bb. If a student enrolled for a course the process has been populating the Bb course but has not been withdrawing the student from the course if the student withdrew. There is no need for you to withdraw the student from the Bb course. In fact, if you un-enroll the student from the Bb course, the enrollment process currently will re-enroll them into the Bb course. The goal is to have the process fixed by Friday, September 18.
Quizzes locking in Bb
In the past couple of weeks, the Bb system seems to be having a greater number of ‘locked’ quizzes then usual. This problem is being looked at by the Bb Team and the Networking Team at VCU.
We could use your help in the following way:
1. We need to know what time the locks occur. When you go into Bb to ‘clear the attempt” on a quiz, the time is recorded when the student was taking the quiz. If you have multiple locks to clear, it would help us greatly to know the time that is recorded when these locks occurred. Please report the Course ID, Quiz Name, Dates and Times of locks to Tiffany Mills at tamills@vcu.edu. Sometimes the partial taken quiz is saved and you can see how much the student completed before the lock occurred. You will have to ‘clear attempt’ for the student to take the quiz again.
2. Ask the students, before they take a Bb quiz, to run the Test Browser test. Instructions for running the Test Browser: log in to Bb, click on Downloads & Help Tab and click on Test Browser. For Bb to work properly the ‘Required Components” should be checked and “Pop-ups” should not be blocked.
3. Ask your students, if they get locked out of a Blackboard quiz, to report the following information to the Help Desk (828-2227, help@vcu.edu, or http://www.ts.vcu.edu/helpdesk/).
a. Type in this URL and record the host name that appears: http://blackboard.vcu.edu/webapps/login/testhost.jsp
b. Are they using a wireless connection?
c. What location are they at when they are taking the quiz? (on-campus, off-campus, in a dorm – which one, in Richmond, out side of Richmond)
d. What Operating System are they using?
e. What Browser are they the using?
f. When the problem occurs can they get to other VCU websites?
g. What error message did they get, if any.
Your help is greatly appreciated,
Blackboard Team
For further assistance contact:
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 Faculty Blog: http://blog.vcu.edu/blackboardfaculty
The message below was received from VCU Networking. This could have an impact on Bb users if they are in the middle of a quiz or discussion forum and lose their connection. There have been numerous complaints of users losing connections in the dorms. This is an effort to correct that problem. If students continue to have problems they should report them to the Help Desk at 828-2227.
Message received from VCU networking:
Change Date: 9/22/2007
Start Time: 8:00am
End Time: 11:00am
Primary System: Network
Impact to Users: No Wireless Network Connectivity in following areas: Brandt, Rhoads, Johnson Hall. This has been coordinated with ResNet
Technical Description: Wireless Controller module hangs & loses wireless services.
A new WiSM WLAN Service Module is being replaced with updated code. Existing AP will then be associated with the new controller.
There were certain components of the Blackboard system that were not working between 2am and 8:35am (Discussion Board, Gradebook, Test Manager). The other components of the system were functioning. The problem was cleared up by restarting the application servers.
If you see a "404" error when accessing the Discussion Board, Gradebook, or Test Manager please contact the Help Desk at 828-2227.
Thank you,
The Blackboard Team
Following are trouble-shooting questions and where to report problems accessing the Blackboard website.
Trouble-shooting questions:
1. Is the access issue specific to Blackboard:
a. Can you get to other VCU websites?
i. E-mail (webdirect.vcu.edu)
ii. VCU Portal (my.vcu.edu)
iii. Blackboard (blackboard.vcu.edu)
2. Is it a problem with your specific web access:
a. Can you get to websites outside of VCU?
i. Try you favorite websites
ii. Try www.cnn.com (appears to be always up)
Where to report problems:
1. If you CAN NOT get to Blackboard (blackboard.vcu.edu) but CAN get to other VCU systems please report this detail to the VCU Help Desk at 828-2227.
2. If you CAN NOT get to any VCU systems but CAN get to other websites outside of VCU please report this detail to the VCU Help Desk at 828-2227.
3. You CAN NOT get to any websites, please report this problem to your Internet Service Provider.
Please note on Saturday, September 15, 2007 from approximately 5pm to 7pm there was a problem with accessing VCU web applications, including Blackboard.
(If you have problems logging into Blackboard with your eID and password, please contact the Help Desk at 828-2227, help@vcu.edu, or enter a Help Ticket at http://www.ts.vcu.edu/helpdesk/.)
Regards,
Blackboard Team
For further assistance contact:
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/
During Oct-Nov, faculty, staff, and affiliates will be required to have a strong password {link to http://www.ts.vcu.edu/faq/security/strongpasswords.html }. If you have changed your password since April 6 or if your password already meets the requirements, you are not affected. Otherwise go to eID Manager {link to http://eidmanager.vcu.edu/ } now to change your password and keep from being locked out. For assistance, contact the Help Desk, 828-2227.
The above information relates to the password associated with your VCU eID. This is the same eID that you use to log in to Blackboard, Banner and VCU Email.
The Blackboard Team
The Bb system consist of multiple application servers. On Friday, Sepetember 14 at 10:58am one of the application servers experience a CPU issue and the one application server had to be restarted. This restart would have only affected the users on that particular server. Unfortunately, we can not tell who was on the server, but if you were kicked off around 10:58am you were probably on that server.
Sorry for any inconvenience,
The Blackboard Team