Starting this Friday, February 22, OIT will change the weekly, scheduled maintenance window to Fridays from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Last semester, OIT announced the need for scheduled, weekly maintenance when Blackboard could be unavailable. If OIT plans to use the new weekly maintenance window, we will post a "Down for Maintenance" notice users will see when they attempt to login.
While rare, OIT found some classes were actually held on Saturday mornings during the Fall 2007 semester. The new Friday evening maintenance window also works well because overall usage has been historically low during this time.
Note: As it did last semester, the Faculty Senate's Computer Policy Committee approved the new change in weekly Blackboard maintenance at its February 12 meeting. For more information, contact CPC Chair Ant Ozok
Comments (5)
Your link to outage for Friday night maint. said:
"If OIT plans to use the new weekly maintenance window, we will post a "Down for Maintenance" notice users will see when they attempt to login."
I was already logged in (since 9:45pm), and in the process of posting to a blackboard discussion group. All the sudden I lost all my work...probably because you brought down the system for maintenance....I received no warning that this was about to happen.
Please advise how you will notify students, because obviously what you wrote in the explanation (the down for maintenance notice) didn't happen.
Posted by Michele Smith | February 22, 2008 10:31 PM
Posted on February 22, 2008 22:31
Did you think this might be worth an email to the general campus population? I mean, seriously guys.
Posted by John Smith | February 22, 2008 11:28 PM
Posted on February 22, 2008 23:28
Michele Smith:
I'm sorry you lost your work, but our "notice" was the system-wide announcement in all Bb courses and communities since Wed., 2/20, that the system would be down from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. tonight. There is no "real time" instant message notice that can suddenly be pushed out to anyone who is using the system just before (or after) the downtime begins. That's why we are trying to help users plan ahead.
John Smith:
You may have a point that we should have emailed this CHANGE OF TIME on Wed., 2/20, but given the variability in when email would be delivered across campus, and the sheer number of people who likely wouldn't want to get an email (perhaps because they were not using Blackboard when we shut it down), sending email would also not be a viable "real time" option tonight. For what it's worth, we will likely be down again next Friday night, and I will make sure we include this information in the student-announce and umbc-announce email lists. The key message we need help getting across is that a system as big and frequently used as Blackboard needs to have a regular, weekly maintenance window so it runs as efficiently as possible during the rest of the week.
There likely is no perfect time for scheduled downtime, and we may not need it every week, but OIT needs to have a time when we know it CAN be down. When it is, users who try to login AFTER 10 p.m. will see the down for maintenance notice. For the next few weeks, we'll also continue to post announcements inside Bb courses and communities and on the OIT news site when it will be down, just so people can start to plan accordingly.
Thanks,
John Fritz, OIT
Posted by John Fritz | February 23, 2008 12:57 AM
Posted on February 23, 2008 00:57
I am confused. You said at first the you are changing the "scheduled maintenance window to Fridays from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m." but in a reply to a post you said "that the system would be down from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m." Can I assume that you meant the former rather than the latter?
Posted by Rob Metzger | February 23, 2008 9:04 PM
Posted on February 23, 2008 21:04
Rob: Yep, you are right I should have said 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. (I went ahead an changed it in my comment above). Serves me right trying to be clear so late at night. :-) JF
Posted by John Fritz | February 25, 2008 11:19 PM
Posted on February 25, 2008 23:19