Service Pack 8 work completed ahead of schedule
48 hours ahead of schedule, we finished our upgrade to the newer version of Blackboard, Service Pack 8; it was live, having been tested thoroughly, on Thursday morning.
The Computer Centre and LTT put in a lot of work to get quite a big set of tasks done so quickly, minimising disruption to our users, so everyone is very grateful!
It’s worth noting that the pilot School needed the VLE for a few initiatives during the upgrade week, and we were able to accommodate them by giving them access to our Blackboard test system. We will always do what we can to make sure staff and students get what they need from the VLE!
Currently, the upgraded system looks quite a lot like the previous one, though there are new features and tweaks. We do have some options to make the interface neater and slicker, but we are currently assessing the effect this would have on users running Windows XP, as there are some issues. We are hoping to activate the new interface, which won’t be a complicated exercise or mean any downtime for the system. I will keep everyone posted!
Finally, thanks to everyone who came to the third Blackboard Banter. Attendance was good and some excellent issues and questions came up. As I mentioned, at the Project Board meeting on Monday, and at Council on Wednesday, we will be discussing some of our ideas for how we can continue to communicate and promote the new VLE, and TEL more broadly, at Brunel. So I will be able to update you on these ideas in due course. I will post the presentation slides up on this blog on Monday.
Have a great weekend everyone!
