Q:  When will we be upgrading to Blackboard version 9? 

A:  The current plan is to upgrade to version 9 beginning with the fall 2010 semester.  Training in version 9 will be available throughout the spring and summer 2010 semesters.  Blackboard 9 is currently running in our sandbox environment, where it can be tested by all Palomar faculty.

  A great way to learn the key features of Blackboard is to view our "Teaching With Blackboard" screen videos.

What's New in Blackboard 8 SP5 (January 2010)

Most of the changes have occured "under the hood" rather than among the feature set.  Firefox file upload problems have been solved.  The announcement tool now correctly sends emails to all students if that option is selected.  The Wimba voice announcement tool now works, and has been enabled.

There will be great changes in Blackboard 9, and we strongly encourage faculty members to sign-up for at least one of the one-hour "New to Nine" sessions we have planned for the spring, 2010 semester.  For those who want an in-depth look at Blackboard 9, we are offering four all-day training sessions during the spring semester, and our summer 2010 Tech Camp will be devoted to it as well.

What's New in Blackboard 8 SP3 (January 2009)

From January 6-8, 2009 we updated the Blackboard system to version 8, service pack 3.  You should now see faster performance in the grade center, and can now use Firefox to upload files.  A number of minor bug fixes were implemented as well.  Additionally, we have implemented disk quotas for the first time.  If your course(s) is larger than 250MB you will receive an email warning from the system and will not be able to add additional materials to it.  If it is over 200MB, you will receive an email alert but will still be able to add materials until you reach 250MB.  If you receive either of these alerts, please contact us so that we can work with you to reduce content size or otherwise resolve the problem.

Blackboard 8 Upgrade June, 2009

We have successfully upgraded to the latest service pack of Blackboard 8 (8.0.422.0).  Further, we have completely rebuilt the database server, installing the new 64-bit operating system and 64-bit MS SQL server; and have replaced the lately out-of-warranty file server will a new device using the 64-bit OS with a great deal more RAM.  Performance increases should be seen, offset by increased usage.

In addition, we have added the Wimba Voice Tools, Learning Objects Campus Pack, and Safe Assign anti-plagiarism tools to the system new for the spring semester.

What's New in Blackboard 8 (June 2008)

We have updated the Blackboard Learning System to version 8 as of June 22, 2008.  The biggest change is the replacement of the version 7 gradebook with the version 8 Grade Center.  For more on the Grade Center, click here (PDF) and here (video); for more on the new critical thinking tools, click here (video).  To see version 8 in person, login to Blackboard or the Blackboard sandbox.  If you have questions, email onlineclasses@palomar.edu or call ext. 2862.

What's New in Blackboard 7.3 (January 2008)

Mostly Blackboard 7.3 was a collection of bug fixes to 7.2.  The one functionality change was the ability to apply the "old" discussion board look to "new" (ie, version 7.2) style discussion boards.
 

We have deployed a "Sandbox" environment at Palomar College (http://bbsandbox.palomar.edu) so that new Blackboard features can be tested by faculty members before they are implemented on the production system.  Blackboard version 8, which has been released, will be available on the sandbox by February 2, 2008.  The major change in version 8 is the introduction of a new Grade Center feature, which will allow Excel type functionality to the Blackboard Gradebook.  We expect to deploy Blackboard version 8 in late May or early June, 2008.
 

What's New in Blackboard 7.2 (April 21, 2007)

There are a number of enhancements to current Blackboard tools:

·         Announcements – An extra checkbox now appears on the Add Announcement page, which will send an email to all course users about the new announcement.  This vastly simplifies a Best Practice of posting an announcement whenever an email goes out to all students.

The Early Warning System tool is added into course Control Panels.  This tool, although originally designed for K-12 institutions, may be of use in identifying trends (both positive and negative) in student performance.  Similar to grade-based Adaptive Release, Early Warning rules are established which will allow instructors to receive lists of students meeting the rule criteria, with tools to easily email students listed for any desired follow-up contact.

New OS and Browser combinations may also be used with this new Blackboard version, including Windows Vista with either IE 7 or Firefox 2.  Firefox 2 is also supported on both Windows XP and OS X 10.4.

 In addition to these new abilities, this version increase of Blackboard will fix several reported known issues, such as:

• Posting graded Discussion Boards on a copied course causes the Discussion Board grades to disappear from the gradebook in the source course.

• When a Course Copy is processed, all content is placed into a single content area, instead of properly distributed across multiple content areas.

• When a Course Link is added to an Announcement, the link appears at first, but vanishes after a user clicks on the link.

A Note on Publisher Course Cartridges

An increasing number of textbook publishers are providing Course Cartridges to supplement their textbooks.  Course Cartridges are an easy way for instructors to supplement their Blackboard courses with content-rich materials developed by academic publishers. Using a Course Cartridge allows import of publishers’ content directly into a Blackboard course site.
 

Cartridges may contain a wide variety of resources, including basic instructional text, PowerPoint presentations, subject-specific multimedia objects such as videos, or banks of test questions. Publishers may use different kinds of content in different Cartridges. Cartridge content is typically updated when new textbook editions are released.  Access to the Cartridges can be provided by your Textbook Sales Representative.  The course instructor will receive a "key" (a serial number) from the publisher which will enable you to import your own course cartridge.

What is the Blackboard Course Life Cycle (i.e., how long will my courses remain on the server)?

We keep the current semester, the previous 3 semesters, and the future semester (as soon as future courses are created in Peoplesoft, approximately 90 days before the start of a semester) in our Blackboard database.  Courses are pruned from the system on a rolling year schedule.  For example, at the conclusion of the Fall 2006 semester, the Fall 2005 courses are pruned from the system.  Immediately on the conclusion of the spring 2007 semester the spring 2006 courses will be pruned, and so on.  The following chart illustrates course creation/deletion:

For more information, listen to a discussion of this topic from our podcast, episode 37.

For this reason, we strongly recommend that professors make archive copies of their courses as they develop them and once they are complete so that if they only teach a course every 2 years, say, they will be able to restore the content from the archive file.  Click here for information of creating archive files.

 

Blackboard Course Size Limits

It is important to understand that because of technical limitations, Blackboard courses that exceed 250MB in size cannot be restored from an archive or export file.  If your course exceeds this limit, please contact Academic Technology to develop a backup/course restore strategy that will work for you.