KISS the Assignment Manager

KISS the Assignment Manager

Keep It Simple, Silly!

The Assignment Manager, used in lieu of the Digital Dropbox, is a great tool for posting and collecting assignments from your students.

While the ability to collect and download submitted assignments is useful, there's one thing you MUST remember - KISS!

When naming your assignment, keep the assignment name as simple as possible - NO spaces, NO punctuation marks such as ampersands (&), number signs (#), parenthesis, and a "short n' sweet" title.

Why?!

When you collect and download the submitted assignments, a .zip file is created for you to download, and it is named according to the assignment's title that is given when it is created. The "Download assignments now" link points to that .zip file just the same as any file on the web, and so the .zip file's name is part of the URL. If the file's name has any symbols such as the ones mentioned above, it will truncate the link and any attempt to download the file will result in an error.

Not that the file doesn't exist -- your browser just cannot read it correctly. If you are having that problem now, check the assignment names. All you have to do to fix it, is shorten the name and take out spaces and symbols, then download the assignments to your heart's content!

Blackboard Update 3/21/08

Blackboard suffered an unscheduled downtime due to a bit of systems maintenance that indirectly affects how Blackboard functions.

Blackboard Faculty: Why am I in the Gradebook?

Blackboard faculty, if you see your name in the gradebook, don't worry it is not a mistake. It is just your "student" account showing up. This student account allows you to view your course as your students see it. This way you can make sure the information you are putting into your course is coming out the way you want it to. Accessing your courses via your Blackboard "student" account is a snap!

The following details how you will access your courses in the student view:

username = username_std (ucs_jws_std or jfk004_std)

password = INITIALS(uppercase) + last 3 digits of SamID (JWS###)

*NOTE: if no middle initial, substitute an X (JXS###)

Blackboard Is Back Up

Blackboard is back up and running as of 2:30am Monday morning. Thanks to the UCS Systems team and the folks at Blackboard for all of their hard work.

Blackboard Downtime - Update

We are currently copying 200 gigs of files to our new file server. We will be bringing Blackboard up once that is done. We should be up and ready to roll by our 8am classes Monday morning.

Blackboard Downtime Update

Due to SHSU's loss of Internet connection we were unable to obtain our SSL certificates on Saturday. We will endeavor to obtain them and have Blackboard up and running sometime Sunday 10/16/2008.

Blackboard Downtime Update

All of the Hardware is in place and the operating systems and files have been loaded. Saturday morning we will complete the work on our SSL Certification for the new servers and look to have Blackboard up and running by Saturday afternoon 3/15/2008.

Hardware Migration Update

Here is what we've done so far:

• Put all hardware in place in data center
• Setup, configure and test backup solution
• Backup current data
• Set up Cluster
• Install database software (Oracle)
• Restore backup of current production data to new database

Our systems team is currently working diligently with the folks from Blackboard to ensure that our tasks are accomplished and testing is done by Friday afternoon. We will continue to keep you posted as the transition progresses.