Author: Dr. Rachel Thompson

Zoom: March 21 update brings waiting and breakout room changes, new and enhanced features

The March 21 Zoom release brings many new and enhanced features, a complete list of which is available here: Release notes for March 21, 2022

CIT staffer Karen Burns points out that several improvements to waiting and breakout rooms have been requested by UA instructors. From Zoom:

Meeting features

  • Rename participants in Waiting Room – Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS
    Hosts and co-hosts can rename meeting participants in the waiting room before they enter the meeting. After locating a participant’s name in the waiting room section of the participant list, an option appears in the … menu to rename that participant. The participant is notified of this change.
  • Save Breakout Room assignments for future use – Windows, macOS
    When breakout rooms are created, the host can save that current configuration and participant assignments, which can be used in future sessions. This is only available for recurring meetings and limited to 10 saved configurations per user.
  • Share audio with content to all breakout rooms – Windows, macOS
    Hosts are able to share computer audio, along with shared content, to all breakout rooms. This can be enabled when beginning the share, or while sharing is in progress. This also supports the Share Video option as well for Breakout Rooms.
  • Optional include co-host when automatically assigning breakout rooms – Windows, macOS, Linux
    When creating breakout rooms and choosing to assign participants automatically, any co-hosts will now not automatically be included in the assignments, but the host can choose to include them.

Zoom provides video conferencing, simple online meetings, and group messaging. Real-time information about Zoom status, as well as updates about scheduled maintenance and past incidents, is available on the Zoom status page.

Instructional Technology News – March 3, 2022

Hello instructors,

Melissa from The Center for Instructional Technology here with the latest instructional technology news.

Midterm grades due March 4 at midnight

Midterm grades are due Friday, 3/4 at 11:59 p.m. Instructors are required to submit midterm grades for all 100- and 200-level courses, as well as grades for non-attendance. Midterm grading should be used to submit grades assigned for non-attendance.

Helpful grading information:

Reporting a non-attendance grade? Find the date the student last accessed your Blackboard course using the Performance Dashboard or by viewing the Last Access column in the Grade Center grid.

Introducing the Instructional Technology knowledge base

You can now find instructional technology help articles and answers to frequently asked questions in CIT’s Instructional Technology knowledge base. Search by keyword, browse by topic, or navigate via menu to find resources for both instructors and students. Importing midterm or final grades into myBama? Provisioning a Blackboard course for Panopto? Creating a Turnitin assignment? Looking for Lockdown Browser Information for Students? Find the information you need in the knowledge base.

The Technologies pages on the CIT website have been redesigned to feature prominent links to relevant knowledge base content. Contact us for assistance locating former website content in the knowledge base.

Blackboard Learn: Automatic cleanup of user-created archive and export packages

An upcoming change to Blackboard Learn will impact export and archive packages created within a Blackboard Learn course. Course packages created after the March 3, 2022 Blackboard Learn upgrade will expire and auto-delete 30 days after the creation date. Existing user-generated course packages will be set to expire in 90 days from the March 3, 2022 upgrade. Additional information is available on the CIT website: Blackboard Learn: Automatic cleanup of user-created archive and export packages

News from OIT

We’re here to help

Your colleagues in The Center for Instructional Technology provide training, support, workshops, webinars, and consultations for UA’s instructional technologies and technology accessibility. Submit a help request or join us at an upcoming webinar.

Want more updates from CIT? Subscribe to our news updates and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

Blackboard Learn: Automatic cleanup of user-created archive and export packages

An upcoming change to Blackboard Learn will impact export and archive packages created within a Blackboard Learn course.

Course packages created after the March 3, 2022 upgrade will expire and auto-delete 30 days after the creation date.

Existing user-generated course packages will be set to expire in 90 days from the March 3, 2022 upgrade.

In keeping with the LMS Course Retention Policy, Blackboard Learn courses are subject to removal from the system two (2) years following the end of the semester in which they are taught. Blackboard’s export course feature is one method by which instructors can back up content; it creates a ZIP file of your course content that can be used to create a new course. CIT recommends storing these files in Box or OneDrive.

Information about and step-by-step instructions for exporting courses can be found on Blackboard’s Help site: Export a course

Information about the change to user-generated course packages can be found in the release notes for the March 2022 upgrade: Automatic cleanup of user-created archive and export packages – 3900.34.0

Blackboard Collaborate Scheduled Maintenance – March 10

From Blackboard:

Feb 24, 14:08 EST

Scheduled – Blackboard will be deploying our Collaborate v22.04 release to the US region (https://us.bbcollab.com), hosted in AWS (US – Virginia): us-east-1.

Start Time:

Thursday, March 10, 2022 2:00 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time) UTC/GMT -5 hours

End Time:

Thursday, March 10, 2022 6:00 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time) UTC/GMT -5 hours

Collaborate customers will experience intermittent availability during the maintenance window. For more information, please refer to: Collaborate Version 22.04 Release

Date Published: Feb 24, 2022

Real-time information about Blackboard status, as well as updates about scheduled maintenance and past incidents, is available on the Blackboard status page.

Instructional Technology News – February 18, 2022

Hello instructors,

Melissa from The Center for Instructional Technology here with some instructional technology news and tips.

Learning ePortfolios in the Classroom: A Panel

Date: Tuesday, March 1, 2022, 2:00-3:30 pm
Location: Lackey Room, Bryant Conference Center

This professional development session, brought to you by The College of Continuing Studies and The Center for Instructional Technology, will feature instructors and experts from several UA colleges. Panelists will discuss their use of eportfolios and visual storytelling assignments as vehicles for course- and program-level reflection, integration, and learning.

Panelists:
Meredith Bagley, Department of Communication Studies
Leah Gutenson, College of Continuing Studies
Jessica Kidd, Department of English
Natalie Loper, Department of English
Shayla Smith, School of Social Work

Facilitated by Melissa Green, CIT Education and Outreach

Register now for Learning ePortfolios in the Classroom

New Courses in Blackboard Learn Course List

The contents of your Blackboard Learn Courses page will change as Summer and Fall 2022 courses are created. Courses are grouped based on their associated terms: Spring 2022 is 202210, Summer 2022 is 202230, and Fall 2022 is 202240. Select the down arrow next to Current Courses to move between past, current, and upcoming courses. If you access a course frequently, select its star icon to add it to your favorites so it always appears at the top of the course list. More on finding courses: Find Your Courses

Midterm grades due March 4 at midnight

Midterm grades are due Friday, 3/4 at 11:59 p.m. Instructors are required to submit midterm grades for all 100- and 200-level courses. Midterm grading should be used to submit grades assigned for non-attendance.

Helpful grading information:

Reporting a non-attendance grade? Find the date the student last accessed your Blackboard course using the Performance Dashboard or by viewing the Last Access column in the Grade Center grid.

CIT Door Hangers

We recently distributed Do Not Disturb – I’m Teaching with Technology door hangers (JPG) to departmental offices with a request to share them with faculty and other instructors. The door hangers highlight CIT-supported tools to help you teach and learn. If you did not receive a door hanger and would like one, please send an email with your name and campus mailbox number to Melissa Green.

LastPass and Blackboard Test Options

CIT has learned the LastPass browser extension may incorrectly autofill fields and generate passwords when editing Test Options in Blackboard Learn. If you experience this issue, you can disable autofill for Blackboard in your LastPass settings: Known Issue: LastPass and Blackboard Test Options

News from OIT

  • OIT hosts events and workshops to help you feel comfortable and confident with technology. Upcoming topics include Adobe Creative Cloud, High Performance Computing, InDesign, Lightroom Mobile, and more.

We’re here to help

Your colleagues in The Center for Instructional Technology provide training, support, workshops, webinars, and consultations for UA’s instructional technologies and technology accessibility. Submit a help request or join us at an upcoming webinar.

Want more updates from CIT? Subscribe to our news updates and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

Known Issue: Lastpass and Blackboard Test Options

The LastPass browser extension may incorrectly autofill fields and generate passwords when editing Test Options in Blackboard Learn. LastPass suggests editing settings for Blackboard in your LastPass vault if you encounter this issue:
  1. Go to lastpass.com and log in.
  2. Go to Passwords
  3. Hover over Blackboard tile and click wrench icon to edit settings
  4. Click Advanced Settings to expand
  5. Check box for Disable Autofill

RESOLVED – Known Issue: Blackboard Ally Degraded Performance

Update 02/18/2022 10 a.m.: Blackboard has resolved this issue.


CIT has learned that Blackboard is monitoring an issue with Blackboard Ally for LMS that was preventing the processing of new content added to Learn courses. The issue has been addressed, but delays may continue until February 4.

From Blackboard:

Ally – US-EAST-1 – Degraded Performance
Monitoring – Processing of new content has been restored with some delays. We anticipate these queued items to be processed by February 4th, 2022.
Feb 210:55 EST
Identified – Processing of new content has been restored with some delays. Our teams continue to work on restoring services to normal operations.
Feb 117:05 EST
Investigating – We are currently investigating an issue with Ally in the Americas (excluding Canada) that is preventing the processing of new content added to Learn courses. All other Ally capabilities remain functional. Please follow status.blackboard.com for updates.
Feb 114:22 EST

Blackboard Incident Report: Ally – US-EAST-1 – Degraded Performance

Real-time information about Blackboard status, as well as updates about scheduled maintenance and past incidents, is available on the Blackboard status page.

Blackboard Developer Portal Critical Maintenance

CIT has been informed that Blackboard will perform critical maintenance tonight, Wed., Feb. 2, 11:00 p.m. – 12:00 a.m. Central. This maintenance could affect the availability and/or performance of some Blackboard Learn Integrations and third-party tools.

From Blackboard:

Due to an unprecedented increase in usage, Blackboard will be performing database scaling to improve performance for the Developer Portal (https://developer.blackboard.com).

Start Time: Thursday, February 03, 2022 12:00 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time) UTC/GMT -5 hours
End Time: Thursday, February 03, 2022 1:00 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time) UTC/GMT -5 hours

Customers will experience no availability to the Developer Portal during the maintenance window. All LTI 1.3 and RESTful integrations will be unavailable during this window.

This database scaling is expected to take an hour or less.

Real-time information about Blackboard status, as well as updates about scheduled maintenance and past incidents, is available on the Blackboard status page.

RESOLVED – Known Issue: Student Viewing Turnitin Submission Error

Update 02/11/2022 10 a.m.: CIT has resolved this issue. Users may need to clear cache and cookies to apply the change. If the issue persists, contact cit@ua.edu.

Students may receive an error message (filesys.err.dir.attempt) when attempting to view Turnitin submissions from My Grades. Until this issue is resolved, papers can be viewed from the assignment link.
Workaround:
  1. Navigate to the Turnitin assignment in your Blackboard course.
  2. Click on the View/Complete link.
  3. In the Turnitin interface, click the View button next to your submission.
This allows students to view their submission and any instructor feedback.

Blackboard Collaborate Scheduled Maintenance – February 10

From Blackboard:

Collaborate (US) Impacting Maintenance Feb 10, 02:00-06:00 EST

Blackboard will be deploying our Collaborate v22.02 release to the US region (https://us.bbcollab.com), hosted in AWS (US – Virginia): us-east-1.

Start Time:
Thursday, February 10, 2022 2:00 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time) UTC/GMT -5 hours

End Time:
Thursday, February 10, 2022 6:00 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time) UTC/GMT -5 hours

Collaborate customers will experience intermittent availability during the maintenance window. For more information, please refer to: Collaborate Version 22.02 Release

Posted on Jan 27, 11:47 EST

Real-time information about Blackboard status, as well as updates about scheduled maintenance and past incidents, is available on the Blackboard status page.