Blackboard 8.0 Upgrade Complete

SHSU is now running Blackboard 8.0.260.7. We have successfully upgraded from version 7.3.159. Blackboard 8 provides us with a completely new assessment area called the Grade Center as well as new critical thinking tools and the long-awaited return of an old friend, the Bb Search tool. Use the following links to get an in-depth description of what you get with the new Grade Center and an overview of the new critical thinking tools.

• Grade Center
• New Critical Thinking Tools

Our current hardware set up is listed below:

• Three application servers (the machines that run the Blackboard software)
• One collaboration server (a machine dedicated to the virtual classroom)
• Two database servers
• One file server
• One SAN (Storage Area Network) where all the data is stored
• Two load balancers (these machines spread the load of users accessing blackboard between the three application servers)

Blackboard - Continue on to web site

Blackboard 8.0 is up and available. When logging in, users will be directed to a page that tells them to do one of two things:

1. Click here to close this webpage
2. Continue to Website

Be sure to choose the second option(hint: continue to website). Our certificate isn't being recognized currently, but your data is still encrypted and safe, so you can log into Blackboard with confidence.

Thank you for your patience, we will continue to work on making it so you don't have to see the certificate error in the future.

The Blackboard Team
blackboard@shsu.edu

Blackboard Downtime 5/20-5/27 What we are doing

We wanted to give you some specifics of what we will be doing during our downtime. By now, you know that we plan to move from Blackboard 7.3 to Blackboard 8.0. You also know that we will be performing some other systems changes. Here are just a few:

• a series of bug patch, security, and general feature set enhancement upgrades on the Blackboard hosting servers
• Application servers will be finalized in order to provide their complete functionality for all Blackboard Application feature sets as per specification for the planned Blackboard implementation.
• we will be implementing the Conga Clustering technology through the Red Hat Cluster Suite in order to allow high availability for the BlackBoard cluster such that in the event and one node were to experience potential problems the Cluster Suite would be able to detect the issue, take the problematic node out of the active cluster, retask it as passive or if need be decommission the node and alert the administrator on duty or on call.
• we will be placing all the BlackBoard Cluster nodes symbolically behind a load balancing configuration for transparent pass through of the F5 devices that will be able to offload newly created concurrent sessions to the BlackBoard node that is momentarily under the lesser load of all those in which are members of the cluster.

We will keep you informed along the way!

Thanks,
Jacob Spradlin
Technology Support Coordinator II
ucs_jws@shsu.edu

Blackboard Downtime May 20-27 - DATE CHANGE

From May 20-27, our systems administrators will perform server maintenance and upgrade Bb to version 8. Bb will be unavailable during this time. If you are teaching a mini-mester course that meets during this time, please ensure you visit with the Blackboard team. They will work to accommodate your class if at all possible.