Blackboard engineers will perform a system upgrade and maintenance on Thursday morning, December 24, 2015 from 12:30 AM to 12:30 PM. Blackboard will be offline during this period.

As previously announced at the start of the FA2015 semester, UMBC’s Blackboard server will be upgraded in late December. This will ensure UMBC is using the most recent and supported version of Blackboard while supporting the new Chrome-based Collaborate web conferencing tool.

In preparation for this downtime:

• Instructors: If you need access to your gradebook, please review this FAQ for information on downloading a copy of the Blackboard Grade Center to Excel.

After Blackboard is back online, please clear your Internet browser cache and cookies before logging in using these step-by-step instructions.

Blackboard course shells for WT2016 and SP2016 were created on November 20, 2015.

Bb shells 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, corresponding Bb shells are automatically generated overnight. If you need a 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 can be split upon request an RT ticket. 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 makes them available.

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.

As midterm evaluations continue this week, the instructional technology team reminds faculty about the challenges of using Force Complete for assessments distributed through Blackboard.

When originally developed, Force Complete was intended to prevent students from navigating away from an assessment to minimize cheating. When the students left an assessment, Blackboard would submit whatever answers had been completed. However, if students encountered technical issues, such as losing an internet connection while on wi-fi or clicking too quickly through assessment questions, the test engine would consider that to be an attempt to leave the assessment -- even if it was a technical problem. If students are locked out of their assessments, the TSC and DoIT staff will NOT reset a student's assessment attempt. Students MUST contact the instructor of record to allow them to start over with a new attempt.

Since Force Complete has the potential to cause numerous frustrations for students and faculty alike, we recommend four strategies:

1. Only use Force Complete in an on-campus, hardwired and proctored environment so that any technical issues can be immediately addressed by the instructor or proctor.
2. Use the Set Timer and Auto Submit options. For example, if a student loses his internet connection for 10 minutes on a timed test, at least he can access the test again and continue. When the exam period expires, Blackboard will collect the student’s responses and submit them to the grade center. 
3. Limit availability to the assessment. Reduce the window of opportunity to take an assessment to a smaller timeframe. For example, if you normally give students five days to take an example, decrease the number of days to two.
4. Use the Respondus Lockdown Browser, a custom application that students from copying/pasting, screen capturing, printing, chatting, and accessing other applications.

For more information about test delivery in Blackboard:

• Review the FAQs on

• Force Complete

• Test Exceptions

• Respondus Lockdown Browser

• Request support via RT

To continue our managed hosting from Blackboard and access new functionality, UMBC’s Blackboard server will need to be upgraded in late December after the fall semester ends. Apart from ensuring UMBC is using the most recent and supported version of Blackboard, the upgrade will allow us to implement the new Collaborate.

The new version of Collaborate uses the Chrome web browser rather than Java to deliver a superior audio and video experience. Faculty can test drive the new Collaborate now by opening an RT ticket. 

DoIT will provide more updates about during the Fall semester, but we wanted to let the campus know now. If you have any questions, contact Mariann Hawken at mariannhawken@umbc.edu or 410.455.2920.