What’s the problem with Blackboard?

The Blackboard course management software was upgraded on August 17th from version 8 to version 9. As the semester began, users were confronted with severe slowdowns in performance that essentially stopped system processing for minutes at a time.  The problem was referred to the vendor’s support organization, and they have worked with Binghamton’s ITS staff daily since early last week to try to track down the source of the problem and a solution.  Blackboard has offered several changes and patches, which have marginally improved performance. 

The thinking of both technical teams is that the problem is being caused by one or more of the “add on” modules of Blackboard, called “building blocks”.  As part of the troubleshooting effort, the building blocks were pulled out of the system, and when they are gone the system performance seems fine.  They are being re-added systematically to see if one of them appears to re-cause the problem.  (This is where things stood as of Friday, 09/11/09.)

The upgrade and the removal of building blocks, of course, cause another problem of a changed user interface, which is also affecting all users.  Videos and training sessions are available at the University’s Center for Professional Development web page at  http://training.binghamton.edu/ for those having problems with the upgraded interface.  The change in the building blocks is temporary and should only continue until the cause of the problem, or the elimination of building blocks as the source of problems, is confirmed.

The problem causing the slowdowns and frequent restarts which affected performance was finally identified and subsequently patched on the morning of 9/16/09. The patch was successful, and although there have been occasional short interruptions due to other problems, the application has been running reasonably well, since then.

Why was the upgrade done at all?  Version 8 Worked Fine!

Over the past couple of years we have heard complaints from students and faculty about features in Blackboard that they didn’t like.  Students complained about the old fashioned look and feel of Blackboard.  Faculty complained about the inadequacy of the grade book function and the number of clicks needed to post a document.  These issues are fed to Blackboard from all their customers and drive the changes they make.  Technologies also evolve and dictate that a software developer continually evolves their product to take advantage of the new technology. It is important that we stay close to the current release of a software product to take advantage of new features that become available.

Blackboard Version 9 has been available since January 2009.  We installed it in a test environment in March and began looking at the features and functions.  In May we demonstrated Version 9 to our Blackboard advisory group, which is a group of faculty which has agreed to advise us on Blackboard issues.  They liked the new look and feel, but noted that it was very different from Version 8.  This group felt that a user going from version 8 to version 9 would have a similar experience to a user going from MS Office 2003 to MS Office 2007.  They would be able to do the same things, but figuring out how to do them in the new environment would be a challenge.  Despite this challenge, the advisory group recommended that we make the transition for fall semester.  University staff installed the upgrade on Test Servers on July 8, did extensive testing and transitioned to the production instance on August 17. 

Duh!  Didn’t you Test the Upgrade First??

Of course we did.  Following the decision to go ahead with the upgrade, University staff installed the upgrade on Test Servers on July 8, and did extensive testing.  We had upgraded Blackboard several times in the past, and our testing procedures had always worked well.   During our testing period we detected no problems and saw nothing that indicated we would have the response issues we are now experiencing.  Following what we felt was a successful and extended test of the system, we proceeded with the transition to the production instance on August 17.  Nothing in our testing indicated the types of performance issues we are now addressing. 

Why Wasn’t the Change Made at Some Other Time Than Just Before the Semester?

It’s not obvious, but there really is no good alternative to the 17-day break between summer and fall semesters.  Blackboard is used extensively, and during the whole year there are only three brief times when there are as many as 10 days when classes are not in session and when such a transition can be made.  They are the times between fall and winter term (usually about 14 days), spring and summer term about 10 days), and summer and fall term (17 days).  Even these times are shortened by the fact that faculty need access to Blackboard after each old term and before each new term to complete and/or set up materials for their classes. Past experience has shown that system changes between the fall and spring semester are disorienting to faculty and students alike, and the short and intensive class schedules in summer and winter largely make them even more vulnerable to any disruption. These considerations largely eliminate all but the break between summer and fall.   There is simply no good time for Blackboard to be unavailable.  We did try to extend the time available for conversion.  Faculty who prepared materials for fall courses during summer term found that everything they published in version 8 was converted to the version 9 instance for their classes.  Fall classes were made available in Blackboard early in the summer for all courses that had an instructor of record for the fall term, so faculty could make changes early.

How did you expect Faculty to prepare for the changed interface?

Knowing that training was a potential challenge, the University Center for Training and Development made short training sessions and videos which have been available since mid-June.  They scheduled and publicized faculty hands-on workshops beginning August 20 and continuing through the end of September.  They also will conduct custom training for individual departments. Because of the issues we have been experiencing the Center will staff a Version 9 Hotline between 9am and 9 pm seven days a week for the next couple of weeks.  These are all efforts to ease faculty’s transition to upgraded Blackboard screens.