Blackboard course shells for WT2018 and SP2018 were created on December 6, 2017.

About Course Creation

Bb shells for WT/SP2018 are available for all courses (designated as lecture, lab, field or discussion) listed in the UMBC Schedule of Classes (SOC), provided that there is an instructor of record listed. As new course sections and/or instructors are added to the SOC by Department Scheduling Coordinators, corresponding Bb shells are automatically generated overnight. 

• If you are an instructor, and your name is not associated with the course you are teaching in the SOC, please see your Departmental Scheduling Coordinator to resolve the issue. Once you are listed in the SOC, your Bb course shell will be created automatically. 
• If you and your Department Scheduling Coordinator believe you are correctly assigned as the instructor of record in the SOC and you do not see your course shell in Blackboard, please submit a Request Tracker (RT) ticket via my.umbc.edu/help.
• If you need a Bb shell for a research or independent study course, please submit a new course request.

Instructors who teach multiple sections of the same course will find those enrollments merged into one Bb course shell. These sections may be split upon request by an RT ticket, which we recommend submitting at least one week before the semester starts, if not as soon as courses are created in Blackboard.

Student enrollment in Bb mirrors the official registration in SA and updates hourly. However, courses are not accessible to students by default until the instructor of record makes them available.

As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options:

• Check our extensive FAQ collection
• Open a ticket via RT
• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
• Request a consult with instructional technology staff

During the grading and evaluation process, Blackboard’s inline grading tool allows instructors, teaching assistants, and graders to embed feedback, such as comments, highlights, and even drawings, directly on a converted view of student assignments in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and PDF file formats.

The current interface for the inline grading tool is powered by a third-party conversion tool called Crocodoc, which will be discontinued by Box on January 15, 2018.  DoIT staff and Blackboard engineers will need to migrate existing documents and grading annotations to a new service,  now powered by New Box View, on the weekend of January 6, 2018. No downtime is expected for Blackboard itself, but the inline grading tools will not be available for up to six (6) hours at a time to migrate all assignment and feedback artifacts. DoIT will make every effort to run the migration process during low peak periods to minimize impact on grading for faculty and teaching assistants. 

If you use UMBC Box for cloud storage, you are likely familiar with how documents render in that web interface. Here is a comparison of the current inline grading tools (left) and the new inline grading tools (right):

What to expect with the change

Blackboard has worked closely with Box to integrate the New Box View into the grading process and to migrate the databases containing submitted student data and documents. The New Box View service will completely replace the existing back-end tools in exactly the same locations within Bb Learn. The overall interface is simplified and contextualized. More file types are supported.

After the transition, faculty, teaching assistants, and graders will not be able change or remove previously created annotations as that feedback becomes “read only.” All assignment feedback saved before the migration will be uneditable and saved as a PDF. As such, we strongly encourage faculty and graders to complete grading BEFORE the document process begins since grading procedures may be affected if a submission is not fully annotated in the middle of the transition. Rubrics are not affected at all by this change. New grading may begin using the updated feedback tools. 

Please review these FAQs on the changes to inline grading 

Blackboard course shells for FA2017 were created on July 18, 2017 after the completion of the cloud migration.

Summer 2017 courses will be archived from the separate cloud environment and migrated to the primary Blackboard site in mid-FA2017. Faculty will not need to export their summer content unless they require it for immediate use.

Returning faculty who have not used Blackboard since spring should consider the following before logging into the new cloud environment:

• Clear your Internet browser cache and cookies using these step-by-step instructions.
• Report any technical issues via RT ticket. If possible, please include screen captures or error messages.
• Familiarize yourself with Blackboard’s new features & updates
• Review the original Bb migration FAQ

About Course Creation

Bb shells for FA2017 are available for all courses (designated as lecture, lab, field or discussion) listed in the UMBC Schedule of Classes (SOC), provided that there is an instructor of record listed. As new course sections and/or instructors are added to the SOC by Department Scheduling Coordinators, corresponding Bb shells are automatically generated overnight. 

• If you are an instructor, and your name is not associated with the course you are teaching in the SOC, please see your Departmental Scheduling Coordinator to resolve the issue. Once you are listed in the SOC, your Bb course shell will be created automatically. 
• If you and your Department Scheduling Coordinator believe you are correctly assigned as the instructor of record in the SOC and you do not see your course shell in Blackboard, please submit a Request Tracker (RT) ticket via my.umbc.edu/help.
• If you need a Bb shell for a research or independent study course, please submit a new course request.

Instructors who teach multiple sections of the same course will find those enrollments merged into one Bb course shell. These sections may be split upon request by an RT ticket, which we recommend submitting at least one week before the semester starts, if not as soon as courses are created in Blackboard.

Student enrollment in Bb mirrors the official registration in SA and updates hourly. However, courses are not accessible to students by default until the instructor of record makes them available.

As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options:

• Check our extensive FAQ collection
• Open a ticket via RT
• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
• Request a consult with instructional technology staff

DoIT is pleased to announce the completion of the Blackboard cloud migration.

During the downtime window, Blackboard engineers and DoIt staff migrated nearly 21,000 courses and more than 800 communities to the new cloud infrastructure. Summer courses continue to operate in a separate environment and will be migrated later during the FA2017 semester.

Before logging into the new cloud environment, please consider the following:

• Clear your Internet browser cache and cookies using these step-by-step instructions.

• Report any technical issues via RT ticket. If possible, please include screen captures or error messages.

• Familiarize yourself with Blackboard’s new features & updates

• Review the original Bb migration FAQ

Please note: FA2017 courses will be created during the week of July 17th. If you do not see your course or need to request a new course shell in Blackboard, please review this FAQ. To ensure your split or merge request is processed before the first day of class, please submit your RT request at least one week before the semester starts.

• Check our extensive FAQ collection

• Open a ticket via RT

• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups

• Request a consult with instructional technology staff

Thank you for your patience while we bring you a better Blackboard experience.

click here to access summer courses

Per DoIT’s March 8 and April 28 announcements, Blackboard engineers will migrate the primary UMBC Blackboard site (blackboard.umbc.edu) beginning at 12:01 AM on Friday, June 30, 2017, and lasting up to 7 days. Summer 2017 courses are hosted in a separate environment and no disruption is expected.

FYI: Please note that DoIT's Technology Support Center (TSC) will be closed July 1 and reopen on July 5.

The downtime window will allow Blackboard and UMBC to migrate all existing content, files, and database from the current hosting facilities to the new cloud infrastructure. Time is also allocated for DoIT staff to verify third-party integrations and to perform quality assurance testing.

In preparation for this downtime, faculty, staff, and students should review these resources:

• 7 tips to remember about the Bb cloud migration when teaching/taking a class during summer
• Where to access SU2017 courses
• New features & updates in Blackboard for SU2017
• Attend a summer webinar

After Blackboard is back online:

• Please clear your Internet browser cache and cookies before logging in using these step-by-step instructions.
• Report any technical issues via RT ticket. If possible, please include screen captures or error messages.

The UMBC Blackboard team identified a time period that should have a reduced impact on our users. If our Blackboard site is down longer than expected due to unforeseen circumstances, updates will be posted to this news article.

For more information about the cloud migration, please review DoIT’s Bb migration FAQ for complete details about:

• Migrating to Blackboard’s cloud environment (SaaS)
• The migration timeline
• Working in the new cloud environment
• General course access

As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options:

• Check our extensive FAQ collection
• Open a ticket via RT
• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
• Request a consult with instructional technology staff

Thank you for your patience while we bring you a better Blackboard experience!