Because of the January 12 and 19 hardware and software upgrade when the production version of Blackboard will be down--and to recover a much needed window in the academic year when OIT can apply and test upgrades--all Winter 2007 Blackboard courses will be operating on an alternate Blackboard server called http://bbss.umbc.edu with the new version 7.1 installed. They will stay on this server throughout the Winter semester.
OIT will create requested course shells for Winter 2007 Bb courses on http://bbss.umbc.edu and move Winter 2007 courses currently on the production server during the afternoon of Tuesday, December 19 and will email all affected professors when the process is complete. We will also be posting notices inside the production server of Blackboard alerting Winter 2007 students that their courses are on a different server. We will also provide a direct link to that server where they should find their courses.
Note: Because Winter 2007 courses will be on a separate server, they will NOT be auto-created with empty course "shells" as is the case with Spring 2007 courses. Winter 2007 courses will be created upon request by faculty using the course request form on the Blackboard Help Tab. In addition, Winter 2007 courses will NOT be "auto-enrolled." Faculty can either enroll students one-at-a-time, allow students to "self-enroll" or contact OIT for a one-time "batch-enroll" of their course rosters (faculty can then augment the course roster by enrolling or deleting students manually). To request a one-time batch enroll of your Winter 2005 course, send email to blackboard@umbc.edu.