Thursday, February 14, 2008

Notes on Bb Conference Call - 1/22/2008

Red - Greater interest to Faculty
Blue - My additional comments

Attended:
Blue Ridge, Central, Danville, John Tyler, Lord Fairfax, Northern, System Office, Southside, Southwest, Thomas Nelson, Virginia Highlands, Virginia Western, Wytheville
Did not attend:
Dabney, Eastern Shore, Germanna, J. Sargeant Reynolds, Mountain Empire, New River, Patrick Henry, Paul D. Camp, Piedmont, Rappahannock, Tidewater,

These notes were written up a couple of weeks after the call, so some details may be fuzzy. I apologize for the tardiness.
  • When will Bb6 go down?
    Close of business on Friday, January 25.

    This was done. We do have the backup archives.
  • Self-assessments problem – hiding the grade from the gradebook
    There is a combination of checkboxes that if the instructor is not careful, will prevent them from seeing student grades. There is no simple resolution to this at this time.
  • Some reports of slow-loading graphics and in faculty courses
    Please see the threads on troubleshooting Blackboard in VCCS Discuss.
  • Some HTML is disabled by Blackboard
    Yes. BB 7.x is very assertive about not allowing potentially harmful HTML through its filters.
  • What are the best options on no-print/no-copy?
    Please see thread on VCCS Discuss.

There are three versions of the no-copy/no-print javascript. These are:

  1. http://nl.tncc.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.princeton.edu/as/bbfaq/Endtime_Counter.htm
  2. http://nl.tncc.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://itc.boisestate.edu/BbSupport/BbDocs/instructors/NoPrintCopy.htm
  3. http://nl.tncc.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.wcc.vccs.edu/services/blackboard/tipsTricks.html%23copy

    The Princeton code is an evolution of David Carter-Tod's original code (bb6) with a forced submit of tests.

    Implementing this code is best done by placing in the instructions of the test with the WYSIWYG editor turned off. Even if you do implement this code, there are risks (see the caveats on the Princeton page), particularly with essay questions, and no-one would claim that these make tests completely secure.

    They don't deter the determined.
  • What is the Building blocks schedule – e.g. Classtop, SafeAssign, Facebook integration?
    The first priority is 7.3 Service Pack 1. We are making significant progress with this. Inez Farrell is coordinating Building Block priorities.

    Scheduled to be implemented on Feb. 14, 2008 – midnight to 2am

  • Impatica – jar versus zip
    Not sure what the issue was here. One format was working better than the other
  • Changes not sticking or appearing later
    There have been a couple of reports of changes not appearing immediately, but at a later time. There is no technical reason why this would happen. If this can be reported via Issuetrak, we’d be happy to investigate.
  • Can server bounces be documented in the current performance ticket to facilitate responding to students?
    We will attempt to do so.
  • Request module deletion
    While modules can be added by admins, deletion must be requested via Issuetrak. This is to prevent inadvertent deletion of shared material.
  • Large discussion boards appear to be slow
    Please point us at specific boards, but we also expect SP1 to provide a performance boost for discussion boards.
  • Module movement
    Colleges can easily administer their own tabs, but should request via Issuetrak any changes to shared tabs.

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