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.

Learning Modules, TOCs and System Exception Errors

If you are using a Learning Module (LM) in your Blackboard CE course and that LM includes 20 or more entries (e.g. headings, Web Links, HTML pages, Assignments, Quizzes, and so on), read on. These issues have come to our attention as we’ve taught the iTeach Online Workshop (formerly WebCeTera) and discovered additional flaws or bugs in Blackboard CE 6.1.1.

Background
Normally as you construct each module, the student would see a left-hand table of contents (TOC) that indicates every entry in the module. The entries in the TOC are hyperlinks to navigate through the module (skipping entries, viewing just the elements the student wants to review and so on). The TOC serves as a site map for the module. Normally, the student can quickly discerned the structure of each LM; e.g. the fact that each module starts with learning objectives, includes pages of content (text, PDF and Movie files) and ends with a page of assignments, module tips and maybe an assessment covering the module’s content.

The Problem
Due to a “bug” that cropped up with CE 6.1.1 (and was not present the last time we offered WebCeTera using CE 6.0.2) if you include the TOC as the first page of a LM or have it displayed in a left-hand panel and the student is using Internet Explorer, the student will get an “unexpected system exception error” each time they click a TOC link. Further, even though the message has a link to “Return to My Blackboard” that link simply displays another “unexpected system exception error.” The net effect is the student (designer and instructor too) must close the browser, log back in and if you try the same process again (even to access a different LM page), the browser crashes again.

Solutions
The only options to date are:

1. Require everyone to use FireFox (which requires that it be installed and configured for Blackboard) – Firefox doesn’t encounter the same problem.
2. Break each module into 20 or less entries; but that may require hours of rebuilding the course, cause an awkward separation of related information and may devastate the planned structure of the course (requiring changes in course syllabus and other instructions).
3. Turn off the TOC and have students navigate blindly not knowing how many elements are in each LM. Additionally, the student will need to navigate the module sequentially to find and view or review a specific page.

Additional Problems
For iTeach Online, we finally decided to break the modules up because we could export a module and then import it two or three times and in each duplicate module remove enough entries so the total number of entries would be under 20. The net result would be the revised Module 1a, 1b, 1c and so on where each new module would have less than 20 entries and the student would need to complete all of them as part of what the syllabus called “Module 1.”

So we tried it and found two more bugs. When you export and then import a Learning Module, Web Links are not imported. In our case the most time consuming aspect of the task was not avoided (e.g. creating Web Links and identifying the specific URL for each).

We also discovered that even though Blackboard doesn’t allow duplicate, identical names for assessments, if you import a Learning Module that has an assessment link in it, the assessment is duplicated with the very same name. The import process also ignores the release criteria for the quiz when it creates the duplicate. That means students will see the quizzes and they’ll be available immediately…which will cause confusion.

We are detailing these bugs because, even if you’ve avoided encountering them early in your course, you may still encounter problems if later modules include 20 or more entries. Blackboard has the TOC fix planned for Application Pack 2, tentatively scheduled for Spring 2007. So at best, we’ll have a fix for Summer 2007…we’re still looking for an effective work-around.

Always Use Lowercase for Filenames

Blackboard CE 6.1.1 has a nasty habit of renaming files that you upload or import using all lowercase. Further, there’s a known bug that if you have two filenames that are identical (except for the case, the course will generate a general exception error when trying to copy it into a new course shell). So the morale of the story is name all your files using only lowercase letters. Due to Blackboard CE 6.1.1’s renaming of an imported or uploaded file:

WICKED.PDF becomes wicked.pdf
Wicked.pdf becomes wicked.pdf
and
Wicked.PDF also becomes wicked.pdf

Then you’ve potentially got multiple files with the same filename and your course is headed for trouble…if it already has a file created under a previous version of CE that includes upper and lowercase letters in the filename.

WebCT Good News/Bad News #5

These (sort of) daily “Good News/Bad News” messages are meant to inform you of what works and what doesn’t in CE 6.1.1. If you have comments, you’re invited to email me directly (jbacon@jccc.edu) or share on the dlfaculty@jccc.edu list.

CE 6.1.1 Good News: Miscellaneous Tools

1. (Discussions) A course instructor or teaching assistant can now lock and unlock a topic and still post in the Discussions tool.
2. (Glossary) When you create an export CE 4.1 file and then use that file to import an entire course into CE 6.1.1, 4.1 courses with a Glossary of 1000 or more items can now be imported properly (they didn’t in CE 6.0.2). However, with CE 6.1.1 the import will not work if the exported file is too large. The best work-around is to delete course backups before creating the 4.1 export file. With the export file "slimmed down" the import still appears to fail (the import progress bar never moves to the "finished state") but if you wait a few minutes and then jump to another tab, when you return you'll see that the Glossary entries have been imported and are available.
3. (File Manager) When uploading or downloading files the browser (Internet Explorer) does NOT freeze and require a reboot.
4. (File Manager) When using Safari 2.0.3, if you select the Get Files button in the File Manager, the My Computer icon appears and works.
5. (Folders) Any icon alignment changes made in folders does show correctly on the Build tab.
6. (Grade Book) The Histogram (under column statistics) displays all grade ranges.
7. (Grade Book) The default sort order (alphabetic) in the Grade Book is now correct.
8. (Grade Book) Rearranged columns (on the View All tab) are now reflected when viewing Column Settings for the Grade Book.
9. (HTML Creator) When loading the HTML Creator in Mail or Discussions, the tool does not grab control of the cursor, but leaves the cursor in the top field of the form.
10. (Course Import from 4.1) When importing a course from CE 4.1 to CE 6, the "Do not have permission to copy or move" error no longer appears.

CE 6.1.1 Bad News: Discussions

1. Discussion posts do not always update the Unread totals, so indicators of the number of Unread and Read messages may be incorrect.