Changes After Service Pack 2 installed

JCCC installed Service Pack 2 recently (Mid-October) and here is a summary of some findings:

1. The icons on the My Blackboard screen meant to alert the student/faculty member when there is something “new” do not consistently work in Service Pack 2 (SP2). Within the course itself, New Activity icons (the green asterisk) do not consistently identify when new postings appear. For instance, if you copy content from one course shell to another and then check the Discussions and Assignments tools, both with be marked with the New Activity icon even before any students enter the course. In Discussions the icon seems to appear if the instructor has used the topic description even if initial postings have not been entered. The only way to get rid of the New Activity icon is to open each discussion topic (even if nothing is posted) and then click the Teach tab (or Student View tab), which refreshes the screen. The same erroneous New Activity icons appear in the Assignments tool.
2. Descriptions for the Course Content Home Page icons that use special characters (semi-colons, ampersands, colons and pound signs) now display properly (text following any of the special characters is no longer truncated).
3. Descriptions for Learning Modules can now include special characters (semi-colons, ampersands, colons and pound signs) in their descriptions and the text displays properly (text following any of the special characters is no longer truncated).
4. SP2 fixed the problem generated when an instructor/designer accessed the Student View in Blackboard which generated an "unexpected system exception error" if student access to the course had not yet been enabled.
5. However, when instructors/designers access the Student View, they may see instructor/designer tools and not just student tools and options. Further, the Assignments, Who’s Online and Assessments tools when accessed on the Student View tab, may display an “unexpected system exception error.”
6. Icon descriptions on the Course Content Home Page (Build tab) when using Internet Explorer are no longer rendered one word per line.

When the Blackboard Assessment Window Freezes

We’ve had several instances where students have reported that in the middle of taking an assessment, the Assessment tool freezes. When this occurs, the Blackboard screen blanks out or the student clicks the Save button (to save an answer) but the Question Status doesn’t changed to Answered or the assessment just freezes. While we’ve reported this to Blackboard, it’s extremely difficult to replicate. One suggestion is to alert your students that if this behavior occurs, they can right-click in the Assessment window (the window that includes the question on the left and the question status on the right) and then select Refresh from the drop-down menu that appears. This may help so they can complete the assessment.

Campus Edition (CE) 6.2.2 & Office 2007 Files

Since the introduction of Office 2007, files with x extension (e.g., .docx and so on) are treated as zip files by Blackboard CE. Service Pack 2 for CE 6.2 addressed this problem, but there may be some lingering problems. So please note the following:

1. If the Office 2007 files were already in your course prior to the upgrade to Service Pack 2, they’re still treated as zip files by Blackboard (they actually are zip files because that’s the new format for Office 2007 files—they’re compressed).
2. New files uploaded after the installation of Service Pack 2, will show the .docx extension and work fine.
3. One workaround for downloads (not files that you want to open in Blackboard) is to simply download the Office 2007 file with the zip extension and then rename it with the appropriate x extension: e.g., for a Word document change .zip to .docx.
4. If you’re trying to open the file within Blackboard (using a link), try this. First in Internet Explorer 7 go to Tools, Internet Options, select the Security tab, with the Internet icon selected select the Custom Level button. Scroll down to the setting that says "Open files based on content, not file extension". If this is set to "enable", then IE7 will treat the Office 2007 files as .zip files (what they really are). If this is set to "disable", then IE will look at the file type extension (like .docx) and do the appropriate action based on the extension (that is, open Word 2007). So, we recommend you set the setting to "disable" and click OK. When prompted “Are you sure you ant to change settings for this zone?” click Yes. Then click OK to close the Internet Options dialog box.
5. An even better option is to tell your students, if using Office 2007, to save the files they submit in Office 2003 format. When you post documents in your course, do the same thing. That way the file(s) can be opened with either Office 2003 or 2007 installed.
   

Bugs Reported & Response

Periodically, we’ll alert you to issues with Blackboard CE and discuss their current status. We do this so you don’t “bang your head against the wall” trying to accomplish a task that is broken.

Problem: Once an announcement is posted, it cannot be edited. The instructor and/or designer can delete and recreate but not edit an existing announcement. Further, there is no control over the order in which announcements are displayed. Many of our faculty members have commented that the listing of announcements should be in reverse chronological order, e.g. most recent announcements at the top of the list and the oldest at the bottom. At minimum, it would be nice to give the instructor the option to select chronological or reverse chronological order.

Blackboard Support Response: This is a known issue which has been reported to our developers. Currently this issue is slated for a Future Release fix. We don't have a set date as to when this issue will be fix, however when a resolution has been made available it will be published in the release notes.

Problem: When creating a WebLink, the Description text box does not allow HTML—unlike the Description boxes in all other tools. Further, you cannot, as an alternative, invoke the HTML Creator.

Blackboard Support Response: I believe the function to add HTML into the description for weblinks was disabled after Vista 3.0.7. There were a few issues with the HTML function in the description field for weblinks. This feature is function as design.

JCCC’s Response: This may be functioning as designed, but it's inconsistent with capabilities in other areas of Blackboard where Description fields may invoke the HTML Creator. Please submit as a feature enhancement. Thank you.

Problem: In previous versions of CE 6, you could click the “New” link next to a topic, view all those new postings in a single window, reply to any of the messages and after posting you'd return to the window with all the new postings displayed. That's no longer the case and it makes it impossible to effectively use this feature, because the minute you reply to any message, the window of new postings closes and you can no longer tell which messages are “new.”

Steps to Replicate:

1. Enter a course's Discussions tool.
2. Select a Topic with the New messages displayed.
3. Click on the New link and the new messages are displayed in a window.
4. Read through some of the messages and reply to one of the messages (before completing the review of all the messages).
5. Once you post the reply, a screen appears that offers only an option to close the window (not to return to the window with all the new messages displayed).
6. You no longer can determine which Discussion postings are unread.

Blackboard Support Response: I have escalated this case up to our developers. Once they provide a resolution timeline, I will update the case notes. If you have any further information or questions, please let me know.

Problem: When a student sends an email message with an attachment and the instructor attempts to save the attachment (file) to their local workstation, the process does not work and a message is displayed that “This page is not intended for display.”

Steps to Replicate:

1. Go to Mail.
2. If you don’t have an email with an attachment you can open, send one to yourself
3. Open the email
4. Click on the View Attachments link
5. Select the checkbox in front of the attachment and click on the Save to Folder button
6. Click on the My Computer icon
7. Receive error message: “This page is not intended for display.”

Blackboard Support Response: This is a known issue, in which our Developers have identified. It is scheduled to be fixed possibly in the next service pack. Once I've verified the fix release, I'll update the case.