Scheduled Blackboard Downtime 3/10-3/14, 2008

We will be upgrading Blackboard's hardware during the week of Spring Break, March 10-14, 2008. Blackboard, which is now housed on two application servers and one database server will move to three application servers, two database servers, a file server, collaboration server and two load balancers.


We are doing this in order to provide a more robust infrastructure that can handle the increased usage that Blackboard is experiencing. We also do this to provide redundancy. In case one Bb server goes down, another one or two will be there to take up the slack.

We will post updates during the week of the 10-14 as to how we are progressing.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.


Jacob Spradlin
Technology Support Coordinator II
Computer Services
Sam Houston State University

Blackboard Error - Update - We're back!

UPDATE: Blackboard is back online as of 1:20am. We have installed the part and everything is up and running. Many thanks to our amazing Systems team for burning the midnight oil to ensure this issue was tackled! Thank you again for your patience!

UPDATE: A controller card in one of the Blackboard servers is having difficulties. As this is a hardware issue, we are having Dell bring us a new controller that should arrive around 10:30pm this evening. As soon as the new controller arrives we will install it and bring blackboard online.

We don't want Blackboard to be down any longer than you do and appreciate your patience as we work to alleviate this problem. If you have any questions, please e-mail them to blackboard@shsu.edu.

Thank you
Jacob Spradlin
Technology Support Coordinator II

Blackboard is currently giving an "Internal Server Error" when trying to access courses. We are working with the Systems team to remedy the problem.

Thanks for your patience.

Reducing Cheating on Objective Tests in Blackboard

Cheating can be discouraged with the use of the following steps to prevent students from sharing questions with other students who haven't taken the exam.

• Set Blackboard to scramble the order in which items are presented


• Have Blackboard scramble the order in which answers are presented. **Don't do this if you use all of the above or none of the above.


• Set the force completion option so that students must finish the test when they start it.


• Present your test one question at a time.


• Use a timer on the test and warn students in advance that they will only have that much time to complete the exam.


• Don't provide feedback on the exam until every student has taken it.

Virtual Classroom Update - key emphasis on the "Up" part

The Lecture Hall or Virtual Classroom (Blackboard's synchronous chat environment) is back up and working. We would like to thank the folks from Blackboard as well as our Systems team for working hard on this issue. Mostly, we want to thank you for your patience as we worked through this.

Once you access the VC, you will need to accept a certificate saying that you trust it and it will then put you in the session.

Thanks again,
The Blackboard Team

Virtual Classroom Update

We have a workaround!

We are currently still working with Blackboard to fix our Virtual Classroom issue, however we do have a temporary working solution. So, if you would like access to a Virtual Classroom, please contact the Blackboard Team and we will get you set up.

Thank you for your patience.

The Blackboard Team