When an instructor creates an assignment with a due date, the “Create” or “Edit” assignment screen currently tells them, in section 5 “Due dates”,  that “Submissions are not accepted after this date and are marked Missed”. This is not the case. Late assignments will be accepted if the submission point is available, and will be marked as ‘Late Submission’ in the Grade Center.

Posted: April 4th, 2012 under 9.1. known issues, Staff FAQs.
Comments: none

The Sign Up List tool in Blackboard is a building block provided by a third party. Since well before beginning our upgrade process in the summer to Blackboard 9.1 we have been expecting the release of the new building block – as the developer institution also upgraded to Blackboard 9.1 over the summer. We have left the Sign Up tool as available in Blackboard as we did not want to stop access to any information contained in current courses.

While the current version of the sign up list is still available for use there are some important considerations as it is not fully functioning. If you do wish to use this please read the notes below prior to adding to your course.

What works -

• Adding a sign up list to content area
• Students adding themselves to lists
• Students removing themselves from lists when the list is not full
• Notification that the list is full
• Adding students to reserve list
• Export to excel (does not show reserve list)
• Export to CSV file (does show reserve list)

What does not work -

• Instructors manually adding users
• Instructors manually removing users
• Students removing themselves when list is full
• Moving students from reserve list to main list
• Printing directly from Blackboard

We will post further information as soon as the updated tool becomes available from the the third party, in the mean time another option is to use the sign up functionality in the Groups tool. This has the advantage of linking directly to the Group tools such as email. If you would like some guidance on using this please contact bb-help@bristol.ac.uk.

UPDATE 07/11/2011 – We have now received the alpha version of the building block for 9.1 and this is being added to our test environment so we can fully test functionality.

Posted: October 18th, 2011 under 9.1. known issues, Staff FAQs.
Comments: none

If you receive a message stating that emails have not been sent when posting an announcement, please check your course name. If the name has a colon (:) in the title the email tool in Blackboard will not work. This is a known issue with the software and is due to be fixed in an upcoming Service Pack.

Workaround.

• Create the announcement as normal
• Copy the message text
• Post the announcement
• Go to course tools and click send email
• Select the group of users you wish to send the email to e.g. All student users
• Paste the text from the announcement in to the message box
• Click Submit

Posted: October 12th, 2011 under 9.1. known issues.
Comments: none

1. If you cannot open documents in Blackboard you will need to apply this fix  which will stop you being asked to enter your user name and password when you click a link to open a file.
2. Please follow the instructions for the browser that you are using – Please note that this fix is pc specific and if you use more than one computer you may need to apply the fix to each one. You will need to follow these steps in their entirety.

If you have added www.ole.bris.ac.uk in to your bookmarks for any browser, please delete that bookmark before proceeding.

Internet Explorer 8 -

Watch this video it will take you through the process for Internet Explorer

https://www.ole.bris.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/xid-1334293_4

Step 1

1. Open Internet Explorer
2. Log on to Blackboard via www.ole.bris.ac.uk
3. Without clicking on any item or content click log out

Step 2

1. Click on the Internet Explorer Home icon or press ALT+M
2. Click Tools
3. Click Internet Options
4. Under browsing history click Delete
5. Untick Preserve Favorites website data (this is the top box it must be UnTicked, if you leave it ticked the fix will not work!)
   
6. Tick Temporary Internet Files
7. Tick Cookies
8. Tick History
9. Click Delete

Step 3

1. Select Tools
2. Click Internet Options
3. Click Security Tab
4. Click Trusted Sites icon (green tick)
5. Click Sites
6. If www.ole.bris.ac.uk is not already in the list of trusted sites, type it in the ‘add websites to the zone’ field
7. click Add
8. Click Ok
9. Click Close
10. Close Internet Explorer and restart your machine

Mozilla Firefox -

Step 1

1. Open Mozilla Firefox
2. Log on to Blackboard via www.ole.bris.ac.uk
3. Without clicking on any item or content click log out

Step 2

1. Click on the Home icon in Firefox
2. Click Tools
3. Click Clear recent history
4. Set time range to Everything
5. Check Browsing and download History, Form and Search History, Cookies and Cache
6. Click Clear Now
7. Close Firefox and restart your machine

NB – If you are already in Blackboard and have been prompted for your user name and password please click log out and reopen your browser and follow steps above.

Safari (Mac Users) -

Step 1

1. Open Safari
2. Log on to Blackboard via www.ole.bris.ac.uk
3. Without clicking on any item or content click log out

Step 2

1. Open Safari
2. Open the Safari menu
3. Select Reset Safari
4. Check the following: Clear History, Empty the cache, Remove all cookies
5. Restart Safari

If you use Chrome as your preferred browser you will also need to clear the History, Cookies and Cache. Please follow the instructions from the Help function within the browser.

Posted: October 10th, 2011 under 9.1. known issues, Service announcements, Student FAQs.
Comments: none

Update – 14th September

We have applied a fix to resolve this issue which we are currently testing. If you experience the authentication issue below please click the Logout button (top right). This will take you back to the Blackboard login page where you can log in with your usual username and password but should also clear the Blackboard cookies in your browser.

Ist September Update

Some users have reported problems opening documents in Blackboard.  The most common symptom is that a pop up asking you to log in appears, but when you enter your username and password it says you don’t have permission and logs you out of Blackboard. If you experience this issue you can fix this simply by clearing out your cookies and browser history.

In Firefox: Tools/Options/ Privacy/Clear recent history & remove individual cookies (remove all or just the Blackboard ones.)

In Internet Explorer: Tools/ Delete Browsing History. Ensure you delete History, Cookie and Favorites information (if Blackboard is one of your favorites.)

In Chrome: Options(Spanner Icon top right)/Under the Bonnet/Clear Browsing Data/Change timescale to ‘Beginning of Time’/Click Clear Browsing Data

Figure 1: removing browser history and cookies in Internet Explorer.

With Firefox, Safari and Chrome you should then have no further problems. Internet Explorer may continue to ask for your username and password when you open Microsoft documents, simply click Cancel and the documents will still open.

The TEL Support team in the ESU are investigating whether there is a fix we can apply to resolve this browser issue, however the simple steps outlined above should solve the problem. N.B. as this is an issue with browsers you may need to do it on any PC you use.

Posted: September 1st, 2011 under 9.1. known issues, Service announcements.
Comments: none

The default security settings in Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 may prevent some users from opening course documents and opening links to other websites. Please note you will need to close and re-open Internet Explorer for these settings to take effect.

You can also remove some problems by clearing out your browser cache (click tools, delete browser history and if Blackboard is on your favourites list make sure the top radio button is not ticked).

Opening and Downloading documents

When attempting to download documents, users will see a message above the Blackboard frameset stating:

“To help protect your security, Internet Explorer has blocked this site from downloading files to your computer. Click here for options.”

If this happens, you need to add Blackboard to your trusted sites and then set the trusted sites zone security setting to medium low, as per instructions below.

1. Select ‘Tools’, then ‘Internet Options’
2. Select the ‘Security’ tab, then ‘Trusted Sites’ and then select the ‘Sites’ button
3. Type ‘https://www.ole.bris.ac.uk’ in the ‘add this website to to the zone’ field and select ‘Add’
4. Select ‘Close’
5. Under the ‘Security level for this zone’ field, drag the bar until it shows as ‘medium – low’.

If after doing the above you are still having problems, you can try changing the ‘Custom Level’ for Trusted Sites as follows:

1. Select the ‘Custom Level’ button
2. Scroll down to ‘Downloads’ and select the radio button next to ‘Enable’ for ‘Automatic prompting for file downloads’
3. Select the ‘OK’ button.

Posted: August 24th, 2011 under 9.1. known issues, Service announcements.
Comments: none