After Service Pack 3

Official issues fixed with Service Pack 3 (SP3) include:

• Installation issues to adopt Application Pack 2 have been resolved
• Garbage collection has become more robust
• Known issues in cross-listing have been eliminated
• Assessment and question component have been stabilized
• Installer related issues have been resolved
• Safari 3.0 compatibility issue has been fixed
• Issue with "new" messages feature of Discussion Board have been resolved
• An important security issue has been fixed

In bold are the issues that directly affect students and instructors. We installed Service Pack 3 on the JCCC Blackboard production server on Monday, March 15.

Keep in mind that one bug still persists and may be important as you copy course content from Spring 2008 to Summer or Fall 2008 course shells. Courses with group sign-up sheets on the homepage cause the copy process to abort. After looking at this issue in detail it appears the only workaround is to delete all group sign-up sheets before copying course content (the problem persists even if you place the sign-up sheet in a folder ). After copying the course content, then go back and add the group sign-up sheets back into the course.

Online SoftChalk Version 4 Demos

If interested, SoftChalk will demo their next version of SoftChalk LessonBuilder (which we license at JCCC) this afternoon (March 13) from 3-4 PM. Three additional sessions are scheduled in the next couple of weeks. See http://www.softchalk.com/webinar/ for details and to register. Register early if you’d like to see the next version of this product.

New features include:

• New Style Builder tool – create your own styles
• Internationalization – new language options for generating lesson content
• Two new activities: Interactive TimeLine, Slide Show
• Create internal bookmark links within a lesson
• Ability to name pages in the Table of Contents
• New online score tracking options
• New CD-ROM packaging option
• 40 New pre-built style options
• New Multi-page print option
• Ability to integrate PodCasts and YouTube video as a media type
• Ability to optimize image sizes and automatically convert image file types

Enhancements include:

• Text wrapping around aligned images and image resizing in the editor window
• Improved “list” handling, allowing nested lists and improved list editing
• Equation Editor within activities
• Increased image size provided in Hot Spot Image and Labeling activities
• Option to increase text size in Flash Card activity
• Crossword activity allows special and foreign characters
• Improvements to table editing, including visible borders when the width is zero
• Display of point values for quizpoppers and activities
• New Keyboard shortcuts that match those in Microsoft Word
• Page footers can now include links, text formatting and special characters, and images
• New easier installation process
• New software update process allows control of update by user

Springing Forward into DST

Do you know that Daylight Savings Time (DST) starts earlier than usual? This Sunday, March 9, 2008 (in the U.S.) the change in DST will require that we reset our clocks. Our time will “spring forward” by an hour. So it’s time to remind you of a bug alert we originally posted back in December, 2007 (see http://ce-annotations.blogspot.com/search/label/Daylight%20Savings%20Time).

If you try to set a time for an event (entry in calendar or assignment or assessment due date) on March 9, Blackboard changes the time to an hour later. Here’s an example: if you type in a time (like 11:00 PM) or use the drop down menu to choose a time, it may appear correct until you save it, then the time is set forward without warning to 12:00 AM (which would be on March 10). As far as we know now, this anomaly only occurs on March 9. If you don’t expect the behavior, you may be frustrated and waste a lot of time trying to figure it out.The work-around is to simply set the time for the due date an hour earlier than you really want.

In actuality, Blackboard has released a hotfix to Service Pack 3 that fixes the DST problem, however, we’re still testing Service Pack 3 and are not scheduled to install it until March 20 (during Spring break), so the hotfix is available to apply to a patch that we have yet to finish testing. Further, since the hotfix was just released we must test it before putting it into production.