Blackboard Blog

There have been a few things that have happened with Blackboard here at UK over the last couple of months that affect the entire community here at UK.

First, performance has been holding strong with the average page response time still staying the 170 millisecond range. I’ve been keeping up with the graphs, but they all look about the same, so I won’t be posting anything here.

Second, Blackboard has released an iPhone app that uses the same Blackboard Sync technology used in the Facebook application to get course and other updates to your iPhone. This service is secure and your personal information isn’t stored on your iPhone. For information on linking your iPhone to Blackboard check out the documentation here: iPhone/iPod Touch Blackboard Documentation

And the biggest news: TASC and UKIT are pleased to announce that Blackboard will be upgraded to version 9 in the early morning hours of May 12th. Several things are coming with the new version including a more streamlined look and feel. As with all Blackboard upgrades there will be a downtime period associated with this upgrade. The current plan has the upgrade starting at Midnight May 12th, lasting until 8:00 AM that morning.

This new upgrade from Blackboard includes many performance improvements by streamlining much of the backend software to a common language and framework.

UKIT and TASC have a new training server running Blackboard 9 that we are using to give workshops on and allowing Faculty to see how their courses will look after the upgrade. If you are interested in a Blackboard 9 workshop, or getting access to the training server please contact TASC.