Blackboard: Administration system upgrades
ITS is pleased to announce that on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 the user and paper management system running Blackboard is to be upgraded. The availability of Blackboard during this time will not be effected. Below are a list of changes you may notice following the upgrade:
- Role based email addresses
From June 24 onwards the use of official University of Otago usernames will be enforced in Blackboard. This means the email address linked to your username will be used. For example if you’re currently using an role based email address like elearning@otago.ac.nz this will be updated to your personal email address: joe.bloggs@otago.ac.nz. Please contact the ITS Service Desk for help forwarding your email from your personal address to your role based email address. - More frequent updates
From June 24 onwards updates to Blackboard will happen every 15 minutes between 7am and 8pm. This means if you add a staff member to your paper they will have access within 15 minutes between 7am and 8pm, currently updates happen four times a day.
Services Affected:
Blackboard Staff Administration will be unavailable Wednesday, June 24, 2015.
This is the system staff use to manage staff user access to Blackboard papers
If you have any questions please contact the ITS Service Desk.
Otago Blogs and Otago Podcasts Upgrade
To get everything ready for the start of Semester 1, 2015, we’re upgrading Otago Blogs and Podcasts. This will keep us up to date with the latest security changes as well as provide all users with a new University of Otago theme. The new theme is more mobile friendly and slick looking.
When: Tuesday, 3 February 2015 – 9am-11am. During this time Otago Blogs and Otago Podcasts will not be available
If you have any questions about this upgrade please contact the ITS Service Desk (its.servicedesk@otago.ac.nz).
Blackboard Upgrade 2013
We would like to announce the upgrade of Blackboard for 2013. We have scheduled the upgrade to happen between 5pm Friday 29 November until 9am Monday 2 December. This will mean that there will be no access to Blackboard during this timeframe.
This upgrade to Blackboard includes several behind the scenes improvements as well as some new features. Some of the new features include:
- New calendar – The update to the calendar provides some welcome features including a change to the interface. You can find out more about the new calendar on Blackboard’s official helpsite (help.blackboard.com)
- New Content Editor – This is a significant upgrade to the Content Editor in the new version of Blackboard which brings it inline with modern web standards. You can find out more about the new content editor on Blackboard’s official helpsite (help.blackboard.com)
As a consequence of the upgrade the Collaboration service (Virtual Classroom and Blackboard Chat) will no longer be offered. Users of the Collaboration services can achieve the same functionality by using Otago Connect.
You can keep up-to-date with news about this update by following the ITS Service Desk notices and here on the eLearning blog (www.otago.ac.nz/elearning). We will be using this blog to talk in more depth about the new features and improvements that have been made.
