BACKUP & APPLICATION RESTARTS

Occurring Daily

The following procedures are required to maintain system performance and to provide system restore capabilities. These procedures may cause delays in system response time.

• 3:00 AM Database Hot Backup - Time 90 minutes
• 4:05 AM Application Restart - Time 30 seconds

IMPORTANT NOTICE: These procedures may cause delays in the system response time. If possible, refrain from using Blackboard during these time frames.

BACKUP & UPGRADES

2nd and 4th Fridays of Every Month

The 2nd and 4th Fridays of every month are set as maintenance periods for Blackboard. Blackboard may be down for backups and upgrades on the 2nd and 4th Friday of every month from approximately 10PM to 12AM. This downtime will allow for system backups and the application of any necessary upgrades. Reminders will be sent out via system-wide announcement.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please inform your students of this downtime. Also, please encourage students to plan ahead if an assignment deadline is scheduled that will conflict with this down time.

UNPLANNED HOTFIXES

Dates will Vary

In the event of an emergency situation, security issue, or other unplanned hotfix to the system, faculty and staff will be notified via e-mail and system announcement. Students will be notified by a system-wide announcement. These unplanned downtimes will be used for emergency situations ONLY.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please check your e-mail regularly throughout the week for details as to these unplanned downtimes.

Previous Semester-based Courses without Instructors

Any course without an instructor assigned will be deleted at the beginning of each new semester.

Semester-based Courses

Policy
Courses with a Course ID that includes a semester designation (e.g. F08 is Fall 2008) will be deleted after grades have been entered for the semester 1 year after the course has been taken.

Purpose
To allow sufficient time (one year plus 72 hours after the last class) for Incomplete (I) grades to be entered.

Example
Fall 2008 courses in Blackboard will be deleted after grades are due for the Fall 2009 semester.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: In order to save your existing content, be sure to EXPORT your course using the "Export Course" feature located in the control panel. Save this export file to your J:\drive or local computer. This export file will contain the content from your course for later use. Course exports do not contain student work such as digital dropbox submissions, discussion forum postings, grades, or assignment submissions. If you need to save this information, please do so manually. You can use the "Download Grades " feature located in the gradebook to export student grades.

Template, Department/Team, or Other Courses or Organizations that are not Semester-based

Student Accounts

Student accounts are handled with the same procedure as e-mail and campus network accounts. That is, 14 days after a semester ends, a student account is expired (not deleted) IF the student is not enrolled in an upcoming semester.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: If you have a student with an incomplete, and this student does not enroll in any courses in the following semester, you will need to manually export and/or record any work or gradebook information for this student, in order to retain their progress in your course.

Faculty & Staff Accounts

Faculty and staff accounts are expired and/or removed along with e-mail and network accounts.

New Courses

SEMESTER BASED COURSES:
Each semester, at a minimum of 2 weeks before classes begin, new courses will be created on the system. All courses are created from the Peoplesoft database. Each section of every course will be created.

Course ID Standard: CourseDepartmentCode.SectionCode.SemesterYear (For example: CD119.1701.S06)
Course Name Standard: The name of the course entered in PeopleSoft will be used, with the Course ID appended. (For example: Methods in Preschool Education-CD119.1701.S06)

TEMPLATE COURSES:
Instructors may request a template course to use as a content repository which enables them to copy content into a semester-based course. These template courses allow instructors to quickly set up their semester-based courses with content developed in previous semesters. Multiple templates may be requested. For example: An instructor may have a template for a day class, night class, telecourse, and an online course. (Note: These courses will not be deleted on a cycle. To request the creation or removal of these courses, contact Eric Kunnen.)

Course ID Standard: InstructorName.CourseDepartmentCode.TEMPLATE (For example: USERNAME.CD119.TEMPLATE)

New Organizations

Organization sites are currently created manually.

DEPARTMENT/TEAM SITES:
Faculty or staff may request an organization site for collaboration or team use. These sites allow for the sharing of documents, communication through discussion and chat, etc.

Faculty & Staff Organization ID Standards: TeamAbbreviation.TEAM/DEPT/GRP (For example: DLT.TEAM or DLT.DEPT)

Student Organization ID Standards: TeamAbbreviation.ORG/GRP. ORG is reserved for official student organizations.

(Note: To request the creation or removal of an organization site, contact Eric Kunnen.)

Course Enrollment & Unenrollment

Linked to the date that the course was created. In other words, as courses are created at a minimum of 2 weeks before the semester start date, enrollment will begin occurring for student and faculty assignments. The system is refreshed every 2 hours with data from Peoplesoft to account for student drops, swaps, and adds. Students that drop before the count date are marked as "disabled", meaning they do not appear in the course and the instructor cannot view them or their grades, assignments, or participation in the course. After the count date, students that drop are marked as "unavailable", allowing the instructor to still view the students participation, grades, etc.

Courses

All semester-based courses are created as UNAVAILABLE.

Semester-based courses are automatically set to AVAILABLE on the start date for the semester.

IMPORTANT FACULTY NOTICE: In order for your students to view your course, and if your course is marked as "unavailable", you will need to turn on the availability it the course is marked "unavailable". To do this, go into the control panel, click settings, click course availability, choose yes, and then submit.

Previous Semester-based Courses

All previous semester courses that are semester-based will be set to UNAVAILABLE on the start day of the next semester.

IMPORTANT FACULTY NOTICE: In order for students to check their official grade, they will need to login to the Online Student Center (eGRCC/Peoplesoft).

Student Account Creation

Student accounts are created 85 days prior to the beginning of the term once they enrolled. The system is refreshed every 2 hours with data from Peoplesoft.

Faculty/Staff Account Creation

Faculty Blackboard accounts are linked with the creation of their Novell account. The system is refreshed every 2 hours with data from Peoplesoft.

External Account Creation

User accounts that are created for external users will include a ".ext" on the end of their username. This is a manual process. (Note: To request external accounts, contact Eric Kunnen.)