Blackboard News

On Saturday, July 11 Network Services will be doing some network testing on the redundant links between the computing center and Oregon Hall from 6:00am until 8:00pm. They do not anticipate any full outages of any services but it is possible that there will be some brief interruptions of some services including Blackboard. If you encounter any problems using Blackboard during this time, please wait a few minutes and try again.

The full text of the notice follows:

SUBJECT:     Information Services Partial Planned Outage
AFFECTED:    Information Services - Administrative Services
             Blackboard        AppWorx
             Banner            Document Imaging
             Duckweb           Data Warehouse
             Duck ID System    Resource 25
STATUS:      Planned
START TIME:  7/11/2009 06:00 AM
END TIME:    7/11/2009 08:00 PM
DESCRIPTION: During this period we will be conducting a series of tests in
             the network infrastructure that serves Information Services
             two main facilities, the Computing Center and Oregon Hall.
             These facilities operate with redundant services to our campus
             core and we don't expect a full outage. That said, the purpose
             of these tests is to help us identify potential issues with
             our redundant configuration and verify that systems continue
             to operate as designed in the event of a real failure. Most
             users should not experience any outage but as with all tests
             of this nature there's the potential for unexpected failures.

             In the event of a failure, it should take between one (1)
             minute to ten (10) minutes for service to be restored.

If you would like more details about this issue, please feel free to
contact us via email to nethelp@ns.uoregon.edu or by calling us at
+1.541.346.4395 and select option 1.

Thank you,
--
UO Network Services
Email: nethelp@ithelp.uoregon.edu
URL: http://ns.uoregon.edu
Voice: +1.541.346.4395
Archive: http://ns.uoregon.edu/pipermail/uonet-outages

Reminder on coursesite availability:

It’s the beginning of a new term. Welcome back to the UO!

If you’re a student, then when you log in to blackboard you’ll probably see entries for some but not all of your courses. Blackboard only shows links to coursesites after the instructor makes the site “available” to students. So if you’re enrolled in a course but don’t see a link, it may be because the instructor isn’t quite ready to make it available, or it might be because she or he doesn’t plan to use blackboard this term. Check your enrollment in Duckweb, then check with your professor. You may also see links to courses from last term — we typically leave old courses available for the first week of a new term to give you a chance to check your grades.

If you’re an instructor, notice that some of your courses may display as “unavailable”, e.g.

BB 101 (Summer 2009; 12345), Using Blackboard (unavailable)

The “unavailable” means that you can access it and add content. When you’re ready to have your students see it, go to Control Panel->Settings and change the course availability to “yes”.

Microsoft has begun pushing Internet Explorer 8 to computers. There are some known issues with Blackboard and a number of other web sites with the new version of Internet Explorer. We expect to have a version of Blackboard that is compatible with IE 8 in place by this fall. Until that time we recommend that you do not use Internet Explorer 8 with Blackboard.

If you already have IE 8 installed on your computer, we recommend that you use Firefox instead. You may also try turning on compatibility view in IE 8 mode by going to Blackboard, then click on “Tools”->”Compatibility View”. This will take care of some of the problems with IE 8 and Blackboard.

We have received word that there will be an electical power outage for part of the campus on Friday, May 22 from 6:00pm-8:00pm. Knight Library and Blackboard should not be affected by this outage but some users may be unable to reach Blackboard from some parts of campus during this time.

Update:

The only building that will have the power shut down completely is ZIRC (Zebrafish International Resource Center).

Library Systems has finished moving the application servers and Blackboard is back up and running.

On Saturday May 9, Library Systems will be doing some work moving some of the servers in the server room. The Blackboard system will be down for a short period of time sometime between 8:00am until 10:00am. More details will be published here when available.

On Sunday, April 26th from 6am until 8am power will be shut down to a number of buildings on campus. At this time it appears that the Blackboard system will not be affected and should remain available.

Banner, Duckweb, AppWorx and the Data Warehouse will be unavailable while IS does maintenance this Sunday, April 12. Services will go down at 9am and should be back by noon.

Blackboard will still be up during this time but the link in the My UO page to change personal information will not work during that time.

Questions about the upgrade should be directed to Susan Hilton. hilton@uoregon.edu

Due to a database issue, most spring term Blackboard courses were temporarily unavailable this morning (Monday, 6 April) from about 8:30 AM until 8:45 AM. We’re very sorry for the inconvenience if you tried to access Blackboard during this period!

Instructors: please check the status of your coursesites to ensure that the correct sites are marked as available. Instructors see in their “My UO” page a list of all coursesites they have access to, but students can only access those sites that are not marked as “(unavailable)”. You can change the status of your site using the Control Panel (Settings -> Course Availability).

Blackboard reports that SafeAssign will be down for system maintenance on Saturday, April 11, from 9am PDT until 11am.