myUSF Blackboard News

Between approximately 7am and 9am, Friday June 27, Blackboard errors were seen when any of the following actions were performed:

• Post a message to a discussion board
• Take a test
• Upload an assignment

On Friday, June 27 During the scheduled maintenance window, a fix was applied to correct a minor performance problem. During the application of this fix, one of the temp space locations on the database server filled to capacity. During the act of cleaning up the temp space, Blackboard as unable to write to the temp space, which caused errors in a number of places.

The errors began around 7am. Normal operations were restored by 9am. No data was lost as a result of this interruption.

Firefox 3 was released Tuesday June 17th. For the most part, Firefox 3 is compatible with myUSF Blackboard, but we have identified at least one significant area in which Firefox 3 fails.

When trying to upload an attachment to an assignment with Firefox 3, we get an error. A javascript popup displays “please enter a valid file” although the file is valid. This issue is being addressed in a service pack for version 7.3, but that has not been released yet. We will evaluate the service pack once it becomes available.

In the meanwhile, we recommend that you do not upgrade to Firefox 3 if you have need to upload files to Blackboard. Please remain on Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 6 or 7, or Safari 2. These are the only web browsers currently certified and supported by Blackboard.

A power failure in one of the servers caused the Blackboard application to become non-responsive beginning about 5:30pm, April 20th. Service was restored by 6:15pm.

No data was lost as a result of this interruption. In progress tests may have not submitted properly. Please consult with your instructor if problems with Blackboard were encountered during this time.

The backup generator that services the Tampa Campus Library and server room in which the Blackboard servers reside is undergoing an emergency repair to replace the automatic failover switch. To facilitate this repair, electricity to the server room will be disconnected for approximately 90 minutes, beginning at 12 :01am Friday March 7th.

To preserve data integrity, Blackboard will be shutdown tonight, March 6th, at 11:50 pm.

Please submit all tests and assignments prior to this time to avoid any data loss.

Beginning around 9:30am, Monday Feb 11, the Brighthouse network servicing the Blackboard SafeAssign data center in Virginia stopped serving data. As a result of this outage, anybody using Brighthouse as their ISP is unable to submit documents to SafeAssign via Blackboard.

The only workaround at this time is to submit documents from a computer that is not connected to the Internet via Brighthouse. All campus computers are able to submit documents to SafeAssign.

Update
We have anecdotal evidence that the problem was resolved by Brighthouse around 7pm Monday. We are still awaiting formal confirmation.

Take this list for what it’s worth.

1. Should show new announcement for every week
2. The course is very well organized with logical structure of folders
and the contents are clear and clean. There should not be too much
course materials shown as text or graphics on one web page.
3. The students should be able to access the contents from the opening
page with easily followed links.
4. The course contents are engaging and are made up of various different
kinds of activities.
5. Active student/teacher interaction in Discussion Board
6. Gradebook demonstrates plenty of feedback
7. Teacher contact information is clear and obvious

myUSF Service Reduction 12/18

From approximately 2:15 pm to 2:45 pm some users experienced excessive wait time when submitting grades or trying to access myUSF. For about 10 minutes within this time frame we had a complete service outage for myUSF.

All grades submitted during this time (around 150) were processed by around 3 pm. No grade data was lost during this period.

We apologize for any extra frustration and time wasted as a result of this issue.

Thanks as always for your support and Happy Holidays!

The servers hosting SafeAssign at Blackboard Inc. are currently experiencing unscheduled downtime. During this time, the SafeAssign tool will return an error message and you may experience a delay in the processing time for reports. Our first report of this problem was around 8:00 a.m. EDT.

Please note: this effects only those assignments which utilize the SafeAssign plagiarism service. Regular assignments are working properly.

I’ll update this when I have an ETA on service restoration.

Now through the end of the semester, Academic Computing is hosting walk-in clinics where you can ask any questions you have related to Blackboard at USF.   There will be two sessions each week, starting on November 2:

Clinics will be held in LIB 618, on the 6th floor of the Tampa campus library. No appointments are necessary, just show up and bring your best questions.

For more information, contact Drew Hannah:

Faculty may also contact the Center for 21st Century Teaching Excellence at 974-2576, http://www.c21te.usf.edu for assistance with Blackboard through workshops or individual consultations.

If a test is setup with a time limit, students taking the test will see a timer float in the upper right corner of the test window. In recent versions of the IE web browser, a bug was introduced by Microsoft which causes the page to scroll very slowly.

A workaround for this involves changing a security setting for your trusted sites in IE.

1. Click on Tools then Internet Options.
2. In the Security Tab, click on the Checkmark for Trusted Sites, then the Custom Settings button.
3. In the “Scripting” section, near the bottom, is one called “Allow status bar updates via scripts”. Change this from disable to enable.

Alternatively, within the Trusted Sites section, if you set the Security slider to Medium Security or lower, this will include enabling of “Allow status bar updates via scripts”.

Each person using IE to take a test will need to perform this operation. This bug does not affect people using Firefox or Safari to take Blackboard tests.

As this is a Microsoft bug, there is no word yet from Blackboard when or if a fix will be coming from them.