TurningPoint Upgrade – July 2017

In the week starting Monday 3 July, we will upgrade TurningPoint to the latest version, which allows students to vote using their own devices, such as smartphones or laptops, as well as the usual keypads or clickers.

This upgrade will take place in conjunction with the University move to Office 2016, as the version of TurningPoint that we are currently using is not compatible with Office 2016. The new version is very similar to the current version, but it does have one significant difference – in order to run a poll, a licence is required. We have purchased a number of licences to cover the anticipated use of TurningPoint this year. Each licence will have a University email address associated with it and a password, used to log in when running a poll.

Each school that uses TurningPoint will have a general licence to be loaned out to staff for use in teaching sessions, much as the handsets are currently. Please contact your school office for details of the school licence, or to request having an individual licence assigned if you use it very regularly.

The TurningPoint receivers will also require an upgrade to the new version. The first time a receiver is plugged into a PC running the new version, a message will appear, stating that the receiver requires an update. If this happens, you should proceed with the update, which will mean that the receiver will no longer work with the old version of TurningPoint.

A short video showing how to get started with the new version is available here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2GAIVb3X8byNFBJUHZONzBZejg

For further information, please contact the TELED Team: tel-help@bristol.ac.uk.

Blackboard summer improvements information

This summer, in response to user feedback, we are improving the resilience, reliability and scalability of Blackboard, as well as introducing new tools and features.  This means that there will be changes to the availability of blackboard between Friday 21 July and Tuesday 25 July, full details of the move can be found here.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and will keep our blog updated with any further information.