This is a reminder about the Blackboard upgrade taking place at the end of July. The upgrade will start at 6pm on Friday 28th July 2017 and is expected to be completed on the afternoon of Saturday 29th July 2017. However, Blackboard should be considered at risk throughout all of Sunday 30th July, which means it may not be available if additional time is needed. Therefore please ensure that there are no teaching and learning activities scheduled in Blackboard, such as online submission of assessments, after 5pm on Friday 28th July, or anytime on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th July.

The upgrade offers several improvements, including a look and feel that adjusts to the device you are using (e.g. mobile device support), a refreshed look for shuspace, drag and drop of files, a tool to provide badges inside of your Blackboard site, improvements to Blackboard Collaborate such as scheduling sessions and being able to download recordings.

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.