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.

Mac Safari and the Chat Tool

On April 24, 2007, we reported to Blackboard support that the “Chat tool and Private Chat from Who's Online Fails with Safari 2.04.” We added the additional detail that: “Chat does not work on Safari 2.04 when testing 4 out of 5 Macs. When you click on the Chat tool's "go to chat room" link or try to use private chat from Who's Online, it fails to operate. Occasionally a small popup window shows up on the top of the screen, but it is empty. Other than that, nothing happens. In all cases we were using Safari 2.04. Three of the Macs used Intel processors, two were not. Only one of the non-Intel Macs would work.”

In December, 2007 we retested the problem with an upgraded version of Safari. We found that the Chat tool still didn’t work using Safari Version 3.0.4. The only change was that sometimes the Chat window appears but the user cannot type anything (a message) to the recipient, then it closes on its own. Other tests had varied results (everything worked okay on a MacBook running OS 10.4 and Safari V 3.0.4 but failed on a MacBook Pro running OS 10.5 and Safari V 3.0.4. We reported to Blackboard that “We cannot determine if the problem is fixed with Safari 2.04. We can't test that version since when the Mac OS is upgraded it automatically upgrades the browser and we no longer have anyone on Safari 2.04. So the basic issue remains, you can just upgrade the browser number that doesn't work to 3.0.4.”

On February 18, 2008, Blackboard support responded with: “As of right now, Safari 3.0 with Mac OS 10.4, on AP2SP3 (that is; CE 6.2.3, JCCC is on CE 6.2.2) is the only certified support browser for Mac configurations. As our QA department continue with their testing and validation of browsers, OS and Vista versions, we will update the Support Browsers page. This is found through the 'Check Browsers' link.”

Bottom line: If any of your students are using Macintosh computers and Safari, don’t rely on the Chat tool.