Blackboard has been mostly stable for several weeks and completely stable for over a week. Hot fixes have been installed in the production instance to insure that the system doesn’t need to restart itself any more. All the modules and building blocks we intended to have installed are now functioning.

The remaining issue is the use of wild card characters (e.g., %) in searches. Instructors should avoid using them when generating a class roster or when enrolling new users in a course or organization. The cause of this issue has been identified and a patch has been developed. Because the patch involves many modules within Blackboard, they are running it through their complete Quality Assurance test before releasing it to customers. It will be a part of the next Service Pack, due for release at the end of October.

Because the system is now stable, the Binghamton Blackboard Support team plans to leave our environment as it is, at least until the Service Pack is released. We will continue to resolve issues that faculty and students encounter in their use of Blackboard 9. At this point, we expect most issues to be related to unfamiliarity with the new user interface. Please contact either the Help Desk (helpdesk@binghamton.edu , 777-6420) or the BU Blackboard Support Team (blackboard@binghamton.edu) if you encounter a problem.