Adding auditors to your course

Has a student dropped your course and has decided to audit instead?  Read on!

When a student drops a course, we place a hold on their account in that course in Blackboard.  The student is technically still on your roster, but they are hidden and do not appear in an Enroll User search.  Please contact TLT Instructional Technology Support with your course number and the student’s ID number, and we will reinstate them in your course.

Fall 2009 workshops

TLT has scheduled Blackboard workshops for Fall 2009!  This series will be held on Stony Brook’s West Campus, rooms to be determined later.

To register: https://tlt.stonybrook.edu/FacultyServices/Lists/Faculty%20%20Instructor%20Development%20Opportunities%20%20On/calendar.aspx
Select the desired workshop and click "Register!" 

Topics include:
- Basics and posting content
- SafeAssign and the Assignment tool
- Blogs and wikis
- Tests and surveys
- Grade Center (aka Gradebook)
- What’s new in Blackboard 8.0?

For those who are unable to attend, you may contact us to set up a one-on-one consultation (either in person or online).

Blackboard will be down August 25

Stony Brook is upgrading to Blackboard 8.0.  Blackboard will be inaccessible for much of tomorrow, August 25, 2009.

For more information on Blackboard 8.0, visit our website.

Got questions about the upgrade?  Visit our FAQ.

SOLAR will be down August 19

SOLAR will be unavailable starting Wednesday, August 19 at 5:00PM for upgrades.  The system is expected to be back online by Thursday, August 20 at 2:00AM.

Upgrade to 8.0 FAQ

Why are we upgrading right before the semester starts?
1. We cannot upgrade while classes are in session.  That gives us a very small selection of dates with which to perform the upgrade. 
2. Blackboard will no longer support our current version, 7.3, after October.  We have to upgrade before then to maintain continuous support, but again, we can’t upgrade during an active semester.

Long story short, it’s the only time we can upgrade. 

What will happen to the content I’ve already uploaded for my Fall 2009 course?
Your content will remain intact.  The only thing that will change is Blackboard’s interface.

I’ve been uploading content for my Fall 2009 course to the test server.  What will happen to it after the upgrade?
Please contact us to move your content from the test server to production.

What’s new in 8.0?
Find out by visiting our website and downloading our documentation.
- Grade Center
- Self & Peer Assessment
- Sign-up Tool

Upgrade to 8.0 reminder!

Just a friendly reminder that Teaching, Learning + Technology is upgrading to Blackboard 8.0 on August 25, 2009!  We expect the system to be down completely on that date from 8AM until 1PM.

What’s new in Blackboard 8.0?  Find out by visiting our website and downloading our documentation.
- Grade Center
- Self & Peer Assessment
- Sign-up Tool

For a sneak peek at 8.0, log into our test server with your NetID and password: https://bbapdemo.ic.sunysb.edu.  Complete copies of your Fall 2008 courses and earlier are available for use.

While our summer workshop series has concluded, we are available for consultations upon request.

Please let us know if you have any questions, and feel free to forward this information to any new faculty or other interested parties!

August 2009 workshops

TLT has scheduled Blackboard workshops for August 2009!  This series will be held online, using Adobe Connect.  You can participate from the comfort of your own home or office!  All you need are speakers or headphones for your computer, so you may hear the presenter.

To register: https://tlt.stonybrook.edu/FacultyServices/Pages/On-campusCalendar.aspx
Scroll down to the desired workshop and click "Register!" 

Topics include:
- Basics and posting content
- SafeAssign and the Assignment tool
- Blogs and wikis
- Tests and surveys
- Grade Center (aka Gradebook)
- What’s new in Blackboard 8.0?

For those who are unable to attend, you may contact us to set up a one-on-one consultation (either in person or online).

SafeAssign and Adobe Acrobat 9.0

SafeAssign is currently not accepting PDFs generated by Adobe Acrobat Professional 9.0.0 or any more recent versions (9.1.2 is most recent).  We have reported this issue to Blackboard and are awaiting a response.

In the meantime, if you are running Acrobat 9:

  • do not convert your documents to PDFs using Acrobat 9.  SafeAssign accepts Word documents (.doc or .docx), rich-text (.rtf), plain-text (.txt) and Web pages (.htm or .html).
  • downgrade to Acrobat 8.x if you must use PDFs.

We will update this entry when we resolve this issue.

 

Firefox 3.5 and Blackboard Assignments - RESOLVED

If you use Blackboard and Firefox on a Windows computer, do not upgrade to Firefox 3.5. 

When submitting an Assignment with a file attached, an error will appear asking to "Please enter a valid file."  Blackboard has been notified of this issue, but until they provide us with a fix, please either refrain from upgrading to Firefox 3.5, or use a different browser. 

Please note:

  • This bug pertains only to Assignments.  SafeAssign is unaffected.
  • The problem only occurs in Firefox 3.5 for Windows.  Macs are unaffected.

================

EDIT 7/6/2009: We’ve installed a fix on our servers.  This problem is resolved.

If you are a system admin experiencing the same problem, ask Blackboard Support for a new version of file_002dpicker_jsp.class and replace it in blackboard/webapps/taglibs/WEB-INF/classes/blackboard/web/interfaces/standard/taglib/

We are running 7.3.230.2 on solaris.  Feel free to reference our case ID (603123) when you contact Blackboard support.

4th of July weekend support

TLT Blackboard Support will be unavailable Friday, July 3, 2009 due to the holiday weekend.  We will be back in the office on Monday, July 6.

Happy Independence Day!

American Flag and fireworks