We’ve been working hard in eLearning with testing and preparations for our next Blackboard upgrade, which we plan to implement over the Easter break.
This upgrade is coming about six months or so earlier than we originally anticipated, but we’ve moved it forward to fix a couple of nasty unforeseen problems that came out of our last upgrade in November. That last upgrade, to Blackboard version Q2 2016 CU3, broke a couple of key statistics and data gathering tools: Course Reporting, and the Last Access column in the Grade Centre. And in case you’re wondering, dear reader: no, the irony that we have to upgrade in order to fix problems caused by the last upgrade is not lost on us. With very complex systems such as Blackboard, a few new issues are to be expected after an upgrade, but we have judged that these malfunctions are serious enough to justify moving our schedule forward and suffering a short outage.
The good news is that our testing indicates these problems should be resolved by our new version Q4 2016 CU1, along with many other pesky outstanding bugs (suffice it to say that we will be able to trim down our list of existing known issues.)
The terminally hung Course Reports process message – a Demon soon to be banished.
The even better news is that Q4 2016 CU1 will bring some useful new features. For lecturers uploading content items, and students uploading assignments, drag and drop functionality has arrived. Students submitting assignments will now get a unique identifier that serves as proof of submission. And, as a cute cosmetic touch, we will be using a new icon set that looks better.
Drag and drop functionality within Blackboard – welcome to the world of tomorrow.
It may be an indication of the numbing indoctrination that comes from working in eLearning for six months, that I find these changes very exciting.
So, in sum, please prepare for a Blackboard outage over the Easter break, and brace yourselves for the onslaught of repaired and new functionality that will be delivered by Q4 2016 CU1.
