Notes on Bb Conference Call - 5/6/2008

Red - Greater interest to Faculty
Blue - My additional comments

Attended:

Blue Ridge, Central, Danville, John Tyler, Lord Fairfax, Northern, Piedmont, Rappahannock, Southside, Tidewater, Thomas Nelson, Virginia Western, Wytheville, System Office

Did not attend:

Dabney, Eastern Shore, Germanna, J. Sargeant Reynolds, Mountain Empire, New River, Patrick Henry, Paul D. Camp, Southwest, Virginia Highlands

SSL

• Blackboard Production is now optionally available via SSL. Please continue to test and report any issues.


• We will look into enabling WebDAV for a subset of users to test if that is technically possible, but we are not sure it is.


• There was reported an interaction between SafeAssign and SSL. Kristen Kelly has the details.

Oracle RAC

We are planning to move the Blackboard database to Oracle RAC. This is currently scheduled for July 16, 17 and may involve Blackboard being unavailable for those two days. Please let your faculty know so that they can prepare.

Google Apps for Education

While not yet decided, a recommendation will be made to Tech Council to move student email to Google Apps.

Blackboard Testing Issues

Several administrators reported intermittent, substantially un-reproducible testing issues. Question saving doesn’t seem to be working for a few students.

It is recommended that you remind students not to use the Save test option.

Blackboard Gradebook Issues

A couple of colleges (CVCC and WCC) reported an issue where grades shifted down a row. This is also unreproducible and seems specific to particular faculty (courses?).

Innovative Faculty Listserv

The Innovative faculty list (https://lists.vccs.edu/lists/listinfo/VCCS-Innovative-Faculty) is up and running. BB admins are welcome to subscribe.

Please let me (Ruth) know if you are interested in joining this list.