Reminder: This summer’s Blackboard upgrade is scheduled to take place during the weekend 11-13 July 2014.
NB. This is a repost of some information originally published on 11 April 2014.
The upgrade will begin at 18:00 on Friday 11th July and should be completed within 24 hours. Staff and students will not be able to access shuspace and Blackboard sites during the upgrade period. Therefore please do not schedule teaching and learning activities in Blackboard, such as online submission of assessments, after 17:00 on Friday 11th July, or anytime on Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th July when the system may still be unavailable or at risk.
We know that there are some teaching programmes which will be affected by the downtime and we apologise for any inconvenience this causes. As always, the upgrade team will strive to minimise any downtime.
Some new features will be introduced, as well as some changes to existing functionality, as a result of the upgrade. These include:
- a student preview mode allowing instructors to view their course exactly as a student does
- a date management tool to quickly and easily adjust all content and tool dates in your site
- an updated My Grades tool for students
- some minor changes to Blackboard portfolios, including portfolio submissions
In the next couple of weeks more information about each of these, and other, new features and changes will be published.
If you have any questions about the upgrade please contact bb-admin@shu.ac.uk.