Need Help logging in?

This page offers some hints for people who are having difficulty logging in to the UO Blackboard server.

Logging in

You can log in by entering your UO Information Services (Computing Center) Duck ID and the corresponding password. For instance, if you have an account (a "Duck ID") named "jdoe" you would log in with:

USERNAME	jdoe
PASSWORD	your password

Do not include the rest of your email address (the "@uoregon.edu") in your username. If you don't have a Duck ID but are a UO student, faculty, or staff member, you can get an account (or find out if you already have one) by following the instructions at http://micro.uoregon.edu/get_started.html.

Error messages

If you can't log in, look at the error message, which doesn't mean what it seems to:

	Usually means that there is a problem with your password. See Password problems below. Alternatively, your Duck ID may not be authorized for Blackboard access.
	Usually means that you entered an invalid username.  Check to make sure that you typed it correctly, that you left off the "@uoregon.edu," and that you actually have a Duck ID.
	Most likely problem is that you have set your Internet Explorer browser security level too high. See Blackboard browser setup
	See Blackboard Account Problems below.

If you get an error not on this list, let us know and we'll add it to this page.

Password problems

If you try to log in but get the message "An error occurred while the system was processing this login request." or "Could not login. The specified user name or password is incorrect" this may mean that you have typed your username or password incorrectly, it may mean that the password has expired, or it might mean that your Blackboard access has been disabled. You can try the following:

• Make sure you are connecting to the right blackboard server. The URL for the Blackboard home page is https://blackboard.uoregon.edu.
• Make sure that you are typing your username as specified above.  No "@uoregon.edu".
  
• Make sure you are using the corresponding password. The password is case sensitive (so "Im4TheDucks" is different from "im4theducks"). Try a second time to be sure you haven't typed it wrong.
• Log in to the Information Services online account management form. Click "view account information" (see example to right) and verify that:
• Password has not expired (passwords expire after 6 months). If it has expired, change it.
• Available Resource List includes "Blackboard." If it doesn't, contact UO Information Services for assistance (see below)
  

If you are a new student and don't know your Duck ID (username) and password, you can probably find it in DuckWeb under the view computing accounts link under personal information. If you don't yet have a Duck ID, then you can create one for yourself using your UO ID# and PAC at account.uoregon.edu.

If you have problems using the account management form, or still have problems logging in, get help by phone or in person from the Micro Services Help Desk (managed by Information Services), 151 McKenzie Hall, 346-4412. The staff there will help you verify that you can read email, and that your account is enabled for Blackboard. Take your UO picture ID card with you when you go.

Browser problems

The Blackboard system requires a fairly modern web browser, with cookies, Javascript, and SSL enabled, plus Java version 1.4.1 or later. Running a browser that does not support these, or that has them disabled in its settings, or that has security settings that are extremely restrictive will result in login problems. See our Blackboard Browser Setup page for more information. The error message Blackboard provides in such cases is particularly obscure; with Internet Explorer the message that corresponds to too-high security is often "invalid user name and password combination."

If you suspect you may have browser problems, try logging in from a computer in the Library ITC; if you can log in from the library but not from home, then it's definitely a configuration problem on your home machine.

Blackboard account problems

To log in, you need three things:

• a UO Computing Center (Duck ID) account and password (used for authentication)
• Duck ID authorization to use Blackboard
• a matching active record for that account on the UO Blackboard system

If you try to log in but get the message "unable to retrieve user record from the database" then your Duck ID account and password are ok, but there's a problem with your blackboard record. Either the blackboard record hasn't been created yet, or it has been disabled.

We automatically create Blackboard records for all registered UO students, all instructors, and most UO staff members. In a few unusual cases someone may have a Duck ID but not be on our list of legitimate blackboard users.

It typically takes up to one day from the time you get your Duck ID until your Blackboard account is ready to be used. So if you got your Duck ID today, Blackboard won't know about it until this evening.

If you are a community education student or new faculty member it may take a while to process your paperwork and make sure that you are both registered and have a Duck ID. New faculty do not automatically get a DuckID until they request one. Check DuckWeb to make sure that your registration is complete, then if necessary use the online account management form to claim your Duck ID.

If you are a graduate student who is not currently employed as a GTF and not currently registered, you will be able to log in to Blackboard as soon as you register for the term.

If you are an adjunct faculty member who is not actively on UO payroll, you may need to be listed as the "instructor of record" for a current/upcoming UO course in order to have an active Blackboard account.

If you have more than one username at the Computing Center, only one of them can be used with blackboard. For instance, if you have a personal account, say "jdoe", plus a special special account for your research lab, say "doelab", the blackboard system recognizes only one of these usernames (the personal Duck ID). In this case you could log in as "jdoe@uoregon.edu" but not "doelab@uoregon.edu".

If you don't have access, are certain that you are supposed to have access, and the above doesn't resolve your problem, send email to courseinfo@blackboard.uoregon.edu so we can investigate.

Guest access

The Blackboard system also allows people to log in as a guest to preview the system. Some, but not all, UO coursesites allow guest access. Such access is always very limited -- guests may not under any circumstances participate in online discussions, and often are limited as to what portions of the coursesite they can view.

A note on e-mail addresses

If Blackboard sends email, it will always send it to your "@uoregon.edu" email address, but you don't need to actually use that address to receive email. If you decide not to use your UO account for email, it is important that you set up mail forwarding, so that any mail sent to your UO email account is automatically forwarded to the place where you actually read your email. One way to set up mail forwarding is to use the online forwarding form provided by the Information Services department.

Maintained by: JQ Johnson, jqj@uoregon.edu