MELA Meeting Minutes 2003 - 2017

Blackboard has assured us that we will not experience the same problems that we had during the fall 2007 semester.

b. SP2 UPGRADE i.

Christian received an email this morning signifying that the SP2 installation was complete. Usha is in the process of adding the MSVCC customizations. Each school should conduct testing of the system this afternoon and tonight. We anticipate that the system will be fully operational by Friday, August 8 th . ii. 11 Colleges voted yes for the upgrade, 1 college voted no, and three colleges did not respond to the vote. If the association would like to see a list of how each college voted, that information can be provided. Each college needs to communicate what dates/times that proctored exams will be implemented. Christian will be reporting these timelines to Phil at Bb so that they will have extra support on-hand to fix any sluggishness that Bb is incurring at that time. Blackboard is adding a load balancer to our databases, which should help with the problem of slowness during peak times. They anticipate that any sluggishness or slowness of the system will be corrected within twenty to thirty minutes after receiving the report from state board. It is critical that all colleges, if not already doing so, send up your fall snapshots. These snapshot files include courses, users, and enrollments (traditional). Please go ahead and identify the error files that you are currently receiving so that those may be resolved prior to the start of the fall semester. ii. Blackboard is building MSVCC an additional customization that will allow us to fix problems related to SSN issues through the GUI. iii. Ive will begin sending up fall 2008 enrollments as soon as he returns from vacation (approximately August 18 th ). Those enrollments will be sent prior to the course start date of August 25 th . Each school may need to update the course start dates to reflect August 25 th , if necessary. Otherwise, students will be able to enter the course a week before the course start date. If using a course template, you will need to update those course dates individually. Some schools have the automated start date set through their snapshot process. This snapshot process affect online students only. iv. The current Blackboard lifecycle for online courses is two years. Traditional courses may be on a different lifecycle, depending on what each college set during the implementation process. e. NEW MSVCC MODULE i. Terry Pollard presented on Mlogging, Blogging. Currently Typepad is considered the best blogging tool in the country. Blogs can be created on any topic and tied directly into Blackboard. Terry was able to download his blog on Blackboard World as the events took place. Phones such as iPhone, Blackberry Curve/Pearl, Palm, Nokia Symbia Series 60W, and Windows Mobile 5 and 6 can be used for posting blogs into Blackboard using Typepad. Typepad allows readers of the blog to post comments underneath the blog post. The creator of the blog can also password protect documents that are added. c. BLACKBOARD SUPPORT i. d. SNAPSHOT DATES i.

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