Blackboard will perform emergency data center maintenance on Friday, June 11. Four hours of downtime can be expected between the hours of 1:00am and 5:00am CDT. Please contact cit@ua.edu if you have questions or need instructional technology assistance.
Blackboard cleanup to begin July 15.
Beginning July 15, the Center for Instructional Technology will remove old course content from the Blackboard Learn system. This is in accordance with UA’s LMS Course Retention Policy, which states that materials more than two years old will be removed from the system. Students and instructors should save any materials they wish to keep. Visit the CIT website for more information on how to back up Blackboard content.
Blackboard is moving to the cloud!
August 5 – 13, Blackboard Learn will be unavailable while UA’s instance of Blackboard Learn moves from being hosted in Blackboard’s data centers to being hosted in the cloud, also known as software as a service (SaaS). Moving to the cloud allows for flexibility, scalability, resilience and innovation. With this move, Blackboard will get a new look – Ultra Base navigation.
If you’ve used Blackboard Collaborate Ultra, you’ve already experienced a taste of the Ultra look. The Ultra base navigation offers a modern, intuitive and personalized look characterized by simple workflows and an accessible fully responsive design. For more information, visit our website. As we approach the SaaS migration in August, we will post additional tutorials, guides and information.
Flipgrid to replace VoiceThread.
UA is transitioning from VoiceThread to Flipgrid as our video discussion and collaboration tool. Flipgrid offers a modern, fun and accessible video discussion option for UA instructors and students, ideal for engaging students asynchronously. By using Flipgrid, instructors can increase feelings of social connections and community among students while providing students with the opportunity to develop their voices. All UA students, faculty and staff have access to Flipgrid through UA’s Microsoft license agreement. Learn more on our website, and start using Flipgrid today!
On Saturday, June 26 the Panopto Cloud will be updated with new features and improvements. The update will require up to 4 hours of downtime beginning at 8pm.
Blackboard will perform emergency data center maintenance on Wednesday, June 9. Two hours of downtime can be expected between the hours of 1:00am and 5:00am. Please contact cit@ua.edu if you have questions or need instructional technology assistance.
Blackboard Learn is moving to the cloud August 5 – 13.
In August, UA’s instance of Blackboard Learn will move from being hosted in Blackboard’s data centers to being hosted in the cloud, a hosting strategy otherwise known as software as a service (SaaS). Moving to SaaS allows for flexibility, scalability, resilience and innovation.
The move to SaaS will require a few days of system downtime. Blackboard Learn will be unavailable beginning August 5 and will resume service by 5pm August 13. Our teams will be working diligently during this time window to perform the upgrade as quickly as possible to resume service.
Moving UA’s Blackboard Learn instance to SaaS allows us to deploy Blackboard Ultra Base navigation. If you’ve used Blackboard Collaborate Ultra, you’ve already experienced what Ultra looks like. Ultra offers a modern, intuitive and personalized look characterized by simple workflows and an accessible, fully responsive design.
Ultra provides a new way to navigate course content that will save you time and help you stay on top of what’s important. The personalized interface enables quick access to relevant information. It highlights what’s new, what’s due and offers valuable insights into performance.
As we approach the SaaS migration in August, we will post additional tutorials, guides and information. Several awesome new features are coming your way, and we’re excited to share them with you.
6/21: As of June 19, this issue should be resolved with a minor Chrome update.
6/7: Chrome (version 91) and Edge users may be continuously prompted to login to Blackboard when using Panopto. While a permanent solution is investigated, the current workaround is to use another browser such as Firefox. For further assistance, please contact cit@ua.edu or 205-348-3532.
Effective June 26 Internet Explorer 11 will no longer be supported by Panopto. This means that Panopto will no longer fix any issues that users experience while using Panopto on IE11. Users on IE11 will see a message requiring that they upgrade to Microsoft Edge, or another modern browser, in order to continue to use Panopto features. This is necessary as it allows Panopto to continue to innovate on newer browser technology and prevents our users from having a severely degraded experience. Visit Panopto’s website for more information.
If you set up a Final column in your Blackboard Learn grade center and some or all of your grades do not import to myBama using the Import Grades from Blackboard button, make sure all students in your Blackboard grade center have an assigned grade.
This grade may be entered manually if it is a W, I, etc. A missing grade may prevent the import from loading grades properly.
Zoom regularly updates its software with security enhancements and new features! In the latest release, Zoom offers enhanced screen annotation for Zoom meetings, whiteboard auto-shapes on Zoom’s mobile application, and more emoji options for meeting reactions.
Another fun new feature: Immersive View. Be “together” with your class or colleagues, from a distance. Individuals can enable this feature by visiting http://zoom.us, then My account, Settings, In Meeting (Advanced).
Update and enjoy!
Blackboard Learn will be unavailable during the cloud migration. More information about the migration is available in our first announcement. Our teams are currently testing the platform, and we’re excited to release more information to you as it becomes available. Stay tuned!
