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.

CE 6.2.2 Bug Updates

The following bugs were reported to Blackboard Support over the past several months and then were referred to the Blackboard Development staff. FYI, the case number, description and latest response from Blackboard support is listed below.

#479817 - Answers not saving during quiz/test.
Case Description: Students are taking an online quiz/test and when clicking the "Save Answer" button the question is not saved. This appears to be a random event as sometimes the answers are saved and other times the server is slow or does not save the answer. Students taking a timed test are not able to complete the test/quiz in the allotted time due to this issue.

Support Response: Our developers have deemed this to be a bug within the software. The fix for this issue is tentatively scheduled for Vista 8.0 SP1. If changes are made to the schedule, I will update the case.

JCCC Note: I have requested information on when Vista 8 SP1 will be released. We’re on Campus Edition 6.2.2 which is equal to Vista 4.2, so I’m not sure how their numbering system for future releases works.

#406008 - Course Tools Menu Automatically Collapses to Just Icons
Case Description: Based on release notes, the Course Tools menu bar should not collapse to just icons when opening the Mail tool or Learning Modules tool, but that’s not the case. The menu collapses when using the Mail, My Files, Grade Book, and File Manager tools.

Support Response: After reviewing the CR which was submitted for this issue, I noticed DEV actually rejected the Change Request. They have stated this issue will be addressed possibly in a future release. Which also can mean, it may get lost in obscurity. Let me know how you would like to proceed with this case.

#476514 - Calendar Changes After Upgrade to CE 6.2.1
Case Description: 1. It’s common for our faculty to copy a course from a previous course shell and then want to move the calendar entries to new dates in the new course. When you change the date for a Calendar entry (by simply modifying the date), the screen refreshes and brings you back to "today's date" (such as the 14th if today's the 14th of August) but in the month from which you came (e.g. the month in which the original date entry occurred before you edited it), but not on the specific date of the original entry you edited. So, if you’ve got three items on January 18th and you want to move them to August 16th (and today is August 14th), each time you change the date of an item on January 18th Blackboard “leaves“ you back on January 14, rather than on the 18th. If you’re moving an item from February 20 to September 25th, after the change you’ll end up on February 14th (if today is August 14th). This is a change in behavior since CE 6.1.1.2. New Calendar entries default to today’s date no matter what you do. If you move to a date in November and try to add a Calendar entry on November 2nd, the default date will be today’s date, not the date you selected in November. You can change it each time, but there’s no sense in navigating to the new month and date, since you’ll need to set the date each time you add an entry.3. If you try to set a time for an event (entry in calendar or assignment or assessment due date) after 10:59 PM on November 4, Blackboard changes the time to an hour earlier. This is the date that Daylight Savings time ends in the Fall of 2007. 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 back without warning to 10:00 PM. This anomaly only occurs on November 4. If you don’t expect this, you can be frustrated and waste a lot of time trying to figure it out.

Support Response: Our developers have stated the calendar is functioning as designed. When adding a new entry, the start date will show the current day's date. You would have to change the date to required date for the event.

#478596 - Get Files on Mac Cannot Upload Multiple Files & Overwrite Existing Files
Case Description: When using the Get Files button to upload multiple files AND overwrite existing files already in the Class Files area, Blackboard does not give the option to "Replace Existing" files. Instead the filename appears as "Null" and Blackboard offers only these options: "Select another location," "Rename," and "Skip."

Support Response: This is issue is tentatively scheduled for resolution with the release of Vista 8.0 SP1. If any changes occur from our side, I will update the case.

JCCC Note: Subsequently we reported that this same problem happens with Windows users.

#478109 - Inconsistent Discussions Tool New Activity Icon Behavior
Case Description: New Activity icon appears when no postings occur and when a new topic is added (with a description of two words or more or when a period is added to the end of one word descriptions) even when the topic has no postings. This makes it very difficult for instructors and students to use the Discussions topic New Activity icon as an alert that new postings are present for the student to read.

Support Response: No updates have been posted by our developers. Once I receive feedback, I will update the case.

#479657 - No Web Folder option for Firefox
Case Description: When using Firefox 2 you no longer get the “Open as Web Folder” option from the File Manager ActionLink. See attached screen capture.

Support Response: As of right now, DEV has not provided any updates on this issue. Once I receive an additional information I will update the case notes.

If Students Report Assignment or Assessment Time Changes

The following is (partially) old news, but it may impact assignments and assessments submitted recently by your students IF the start date, end date, due date or cutoff date was on Sunday, November 4, 2007 AND you modified the assessment or assignment in any way. Just FYI, from Blackboard Support:

Blackboard has identified an issue which causes the start and end dates of assessments and the due and cutoff dates of assignments to count back one hour each time a Section Designer adjusts any settings in that assessment or assignment. This issue only affects assessments and assignments that have a start, end, due date or cutoff date of Sunday, November 4, 2007. For instance, if the assessment (or assignment) is set to end at 8:03 PM and the Section Designer makes any adjustments resulting in pressing the "save" button, the new end time for the assessment will roll back to 7:03 PM. Saving the same assessment one more time will result in the end time changing again to 6:03 PM. In rare instances, the date may also flip back.

This affects all systems using CE 6.2, CE 6.2.1, CE 6.2.2, Vista 4.2, Vista 4.2.1 and Vista 4.2.2 with a Time Zone setting inside the United States, including Indiana (East). This only affects Sections with an assessment or assignment using the date of November 04, 2007, March 9, 2008, and November 2, 2008 (or any date where the time changes due to DST). Times in March will roll forward one hour with each save. Times in November will roll back one hour with each save. This issue does not affect any other dates.

Blackboard is currently investigating this issue. A fix for this issue will be included in a future release and we hope to have this available prior to March 9, 2008, the next scheduled occurrence of Daylight Savings Time. In the meantime, we suggest that Blackboard system administrators inform their users of this issue and, in the event an assessment or assignment needs to be edited, the user increment the time for the November 04, 2007 element by one hour before saving so that the desired time is reflected when it is saved. If you have further questions or concerns please contact Blackboard Client Support.

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.

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.

Blackboard CE 6.2 Bug Report

(Updated 8/12/2007) In an effort to alert faculty to potential problems as they prepare for the Fall 2007 semester, here’s a list of bugs we’ve encountered with Blackboard after the upgrade to CE 6.2:

1. When using the “&” character as a folder description or in the description of an icon (e.g. using the Edit Properties option from the icon’s ActionLinks) the “&” disappears and (sometimes) all characters following the “&.” Blackboard is aware of this problem. A similar problem occurs when including the “#” sign, semi-colon and colon. This “bug” can cause items to disappear, such as a folder or icon description, an icon. a Learning Modules or pages within a Learning Module.
2. At least one faculty member has reported problems with double quotes so that “quoted materials” appears as “quoted materialsâ€?
3. Faculty members are reporting “Unexpected system exception errors” whenever they try to access the Student View tab. We now believe this is related to courses being set as inaccessible to students until the first day of classes (August 16). When the release date has not yet arrived, the Student View generates an unexpected system exception error. When the release date has passed, no error is generated. This situation did not occur with earlier versions of Blackboard CE 6.
4. For JCCC faculty, if you need to see the student view for your classes (using the Student View tab) prior to Blackboard fixing the System Exception Error problem, here’s the only work-around that comes to mind. Go into your course and hide all menu items (Build tab, Manage Course and then select Course Menu). Next hide all icons (use the Hide option on the ActionLinks icon) on your course ‘s Home Page. When finished, email the Help Desk and ask them to open your course to student access. This way you can use the Student View tab, your student cannot see the hidden materials, and you can also add a page header to the course’s Home Page with a message to your students (to do so go to Build Tab, select Page Options and then Edit Header).
5. We have three instances where course content will not copy. Cause still unknown.
6. For security reasons, we needed to turn on the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) which after initial testing appears to prevent the Windows Media Player from playing MPEG files (and some other media files) embedded in Blackboard. This problem was discovered after our initial switch to Bb CE 6 over 2 years ago, so at that time we turned SSL off. However, for security and copyright (Fair Use) reasons, SSL must be turned “on.” We’re working on a work-around.
7. On the Build Tab you may find that icon or folder descriptions are displayed one word per line. The text displays properly on the Teach tab. This is a new bug with CE 6.2 that was not present in CE 6.1.1. We have reported it to Blackboard (Bb) support. Our testing seems to confirm that the student will see the description with proper formatting.
8. JCCC staff in the Academic Technology Support (ATS) group had set student access dates for each course section-by-section prior to the upgrade to CE 6.2. However, with the upgrade, Blackboard retained the section-by-section settings and then added a new “term” related setting that superseded them. The new CE 6.2 “term feature” establishes dates for each term and those dates (by default) over-ride the section start and end dates. While Bb announced the “support” for terms (which still does not display on the My Blackboard screen, where it’s needed), only upon careful reading of the admin manual did ATS discover that "term support" means the start and end dates for the term effects all sections of all courses in that term. ATS has since set the system to default back to access dates based on each section rather than the term settings. This correction (at JCCC) was made at 6:41 PM on Friday, August 3, so you may have students who accessed your course between the upgrade on August 1st and the correction on the 3rd. If you reset your course materials (assessments or assignments) and eliminate student activity, be sure to advise your students, otherwise you may have students who completed work between August 1-3, 2007 and now wonder why that work has disappeared and doesn’t count.
9. After the upgrade to CE 6.2 hotfix 1, the Blackboard Server had to be rebooted daily. Background jobs (indexing, garbage collection, and so on) were writing error logs to the server and filling up disk space to the point where response time came to a standstill. There are six background jobs that are run by the Blackboard system and four of them are new with the App Pak 2/Hotfix 1 upgrade. Since we did not have this problem before the upgrade, we assumed one or more of the four new background jobs were causing the problem. These new jobs we set to kick off automatically at Midnight, so ATS shut down the Blackboard server every evening around 1 AM and then restarting it, to avoid the slowdown caused by the buildup of log files. Ultimately, we discovered that by staggering the start times of the jobs, the problem appears to be fixed.
10. There are some strange behaviors taking place when entering new Calendar entries. We’re receiving reports from faculty on the following:
    
    a. After entering a new calendar entry, the screen refreshes and brings you back to the first day of the month from which you came, but NOT on the specific date from which you came. So, if you’ve got three items on January 18th to move to August 16th, each time you change the date of an item on January 18th Blackboard “leaves“ you back on January 1, rather than the 18th. If you’re moving an item from February 20 to September, after the change you’ll end up on February 1.
    
    b. Some faculty members have reported not being able to edit calendar entries after a course copy.

Current List of Blackboard CE 6.1.1 Bugs

Periodically I try to alert you to problems we’ve encountered with Blackboard CE so you’ll know it’s the system and not user error. This list is not complete but at least covers most of the more common and problematic issues we have open with Blackboard Support. By the way, for JCCC faculty members, if you have major issues not listed here, please alert your Ed Tech Center Designer.

We have experienced:

1. Cases where course content from one semester fails to copy successfully to the next semester’s course shell.
2. Unexpected System Exception errors that occur for a variety of reasons (opening a course, switching between tabs, and so on), none of which are clearly indicated in the server logs or displayed on the screen for the user’s benefit.
3. Problems for end users with:
   a. multiple versions of Java installed,
   b. recent versions of Java installed (you should be using version 1.5 with updates 6 or 7 installed, but not Java 1.6)
   c. Internet Explorer 7 or latest version of Mac Safari installed
   d. Windows Vista installed.
4. Search tool failures with incorrect or no results reported.
5. Failure of the Banner XML file to import Summer Non-Credit Courses.
6. Failure of the garbage collection routines to work so the database gets more and more bloated, which we believe contributes to slower access times.
7. Failure of the Media Library/Glossary tool if a single image is attached to an entry in one of the tool’s collections.
8. Crash with an exception error if a Learning Module has more than 20 headings or entries included.
9. Lose of embedded images in assessments when the assessment is exported and then imported into another course shell.
10. Calendar tool entries entered by an instructor for a specific course being displayed as institutional entries in all courses; which is very confusing for students.
11. A limit on the number of characters allowed (1333) when an instructor grades and adds comments to an assignment.
12. Failure of the mail forwarding feature to work when a student or an instructor wants email received in Blackboard CE to be forwarded to their external email accounts.
13. Confusion when the Submitted and Not Submitted tabs in the Assignment tool show the reverse information.
14. WebLinks that do not import when a Learning Module is exported and then imported into another course shell.
15. Course names that are truncated (so as to be indecipherable) or are not in alphabetical order throughout the application (e.g. when setting calendar dates, publishing content from Respondus, importing or copying content from another course and when setting the order of courses displayed or hidden on the My Blackboard screen).
16. No ability for the instructor to edit Assignment Drop Box comments posted for students after they are posted.

We know there are many more bugs, we currently have about 70 cases open with Blackboard support, but these seem to be the major items that effect students and instructors.

Calendar Entry Bug

If you open the Calendar tool, change the month to June, click on any date in June, then click on Add Entry, the "Start Date" defaults to that particular numeric day, but the month is set to July, not June. The strange part is if you go to any other month, say September and try to make an entry for that month, the default date shows up correctly.

Also if you're on a day of the month that the next month doesn't include (i.e. January 30, 31; March 31; May 31; and so on) and you go to the next month, it will skip ahead to the next month that includes that numeric date.

It’s a known bug and has been reported by other schools to Blackboard.

Deleted Students Break Grade Book & Assignment Drop Box

Simon Fraser University reports: “If a student who had an assignment submission is un-enrolled from a section, then the Assignment Dropbox will produce an Exception error. Re-enrolling the student and denying access should temporarily resolve this until Blackboard provides a fix.”

Note that the following information has been reported regarding Blackboard Vista 4.1.1 which has the same code base as Blackboard CE 6.1.1 which we use at JCCC.

The following information is a response from Blackboard Support: “The confusing part [of this bug report] is that an instructor won't necessarily know what has caused the problem (individual user unenrollment or group deletion) - they will just know that they can't access the Assignment Dropbox.”

“Back in March [Blackboard Support] put out a “Known Issues from the Field” update regarding the issue [e.g. a student has submitted assignment data in a section, is subsequently unenrolled from that section, and then receives an Exception error]. [Recently] a new Support Bulletin giving a brief explanation of [a] second issue [was released]: If a group is created using Group Manager, and the group submits a group assignment, and the group is then deleted, it will break the entire Assignment Dropbox (for both students and instructors)."

“The problem is slightly bigger than this. If the instructor goes to try to access the assignment in the Grade Book they should also get an Exception error there as well, although it is far less likely for the instructor to try to access the assignment via the Grade Book than the Assignment Dropbox. So this aspect has not been as highly reported.”

“We know this is a big problem and are currently pushing to get this included in an upcoming release (can't make any promises, of course). We keep an informal list of our highest priority issues within development and this is one of them. As soon as I have an update, even if it's a workaround or a script, I'll be sure to let everyone know.”

This bug should be very rare at JCCC because with Banner integration, students who drop a course after the semester starts are marked as access denied not unenrolled. I’m sharing it with you to assure that we don’t act on any faculty requests to remove students from a course.