As part of our ongoing commitment to security, the Unix Infrastructure group will be patching parts of our web environment Friday January 8th starting at 6:00pm and ending by 9:00pm.
This downtime will effect access to the following services:
myUMBC lite page will be up resulting in reduced myUMBC functionality
Wiki will be unavailable
The sites (wordpress) web hosting environment will be unreachable
RT will be down from 6pm to 8pm
The new web hosting environment will be down (pages will be available but any database calls will not work)
Student mySQL databases will be offline
Access to Cyrus and UMBC Webmail (accounts not migrated to UMBC Gmail)
All mail will be queued up and delivered after the server is patched
Expected to be unreachable from 6pm to 8pm
All HFS (user) servers will be offline
Userpages will be unavailable
Perseus will be unavailable
February 14, 2020
Update: As of Spring 2020, TurningPoint 8 is supported by UMBC. Turning Technologies no longer supports the software TurningPoint Cloud. All main lecture halls are up-to-date with the new software. TurningPoint products are not affected by the transition to TurningPoint 8. Clickers and subscriptions are compatible with the new software. Students will not need to purchase another clicker or subscription if it is still active. Rebates are no longer being issued. To learn more about pricing, visit the UMBC TurningPoint Pricing pdf. For more information on what is needed to participate in TurningPoint polls, visit our FAQ.
On Thursday, November 19 a Faculty Town Hall was held to discuss the current status of clicker software and to share survey results. Turning Technologies, our current clicker vendor, announced that they will no longer support our current software starting in June 2016. This announcement prompted DoIT to re-evaluate our current clicker software and conduct a market survey of other response systems available.
Q: What is happening with clickers at UMBC?
A: Current clicker software will no longer be supported starting in June of 2016. UMBC will have to update from TurningPoint 5 to TurningPoint Cloud before this support period ends, or decide to use another response system. It is important that our campus stays up-to-date with our software so we offer students and instructors the best classroom experience possible. A comparison chart of current clicker system is publicly available.
Q: What will be the cost to UMBC students?
A: If we stay with our current vendor, TurningTechnologies, students who currently have a clicker will need to purchase a license for a Turning account after the TurningPoint Cloud upgrade in order to register their clickers for UMBC courses. The cost of this license is $34.99 plus tax; however, the $34.99 will be fully refunded to UMBC students through a mail-in process.
Students who do not have clickers will purchase a clicker bundle in the bookstore. The bundle will come with a physical clicker and a 4- or 5-year subscription to ResponseWare, the mobile version of the clicker. All bundles come with a $15.00 mail-in rebate.
Q: When is this change going to occur?
A: The transition from TurningPoint 5 to TurningPoint Cloud will begin in Summer 2016.
Q: Where can I provide my feedback about this transition?
A: Please complete this survey and give detailed feedback about this transition.
Q: Where can I view the clicker survey results presented at the Faculty Town Hall?
A: Survey results presented at the Faculty Town Hall have been shared here.
For more information, please contact Holly Bielak at holly3@umbc.edu. ]]>Blackboard engineers will perform a system upgrade and maintenance on Thursday morning, December 24, 2015 from 12:30 AM to 12:30 PM. Blackboard will be offline during this period.
As previously announced at the start of the FA2015 semester, UMBC’s Blackboard server will be upgraded in late December. This will ensure UMBC is using the most recent and supported version of Blackboard while supporting the new Chrome-based Collaborate web conferencing tool.
In preparation for this downtime:
Instructors: If you need access to your gradebook, please review this FAQ for information on downloading a copy of the Blackboard Grade Center to Excel.
After Blackboard is back online, please clear your Internet browser cache and cookies before logging in using these step-by-step instructions.
The UMBC Blackboard team identified a time period that should have the least impact on our users. If our Blackboard site is down longer than expected due to unforeseen circumstances, updates will be posted to this news article. We appreciate your patience as we continue to improve our systems to bring you a better Blackboard experience. ]]>The Alternate Delivery Program (ADP) provides financial, technical, and pedagogical support to faculty who agree to redesign an existing face-to-face (F2F) course for online or hybrid (part online, part F2F) delivery in summer or winter session.
The expansion of the ADP includes three tracks:
I. Skill Builder Track
The Skill Builder track offers modular training in core components of Blackboard and supporting technologies (Bb Collaborate, TechSmith Relay, Box) to help faculty better utilize the features available in Blackboard and to prepare for the Course Designer track.
II. Course Designer Track
This track, which most closely resembles the "old" ADP, is available to faculty who have either completed the ADP Skill Builder track or demonstrated competency with the Skill Builder components. The Course Designer track typically requires at least a semester for course development before the redesigned course is offered in summer or winter session. It includes a one day training workshop and an opportunity to work one-on-one with an Instructional Technology Specialist in the Division of Information Technology (DoIT). Faculty who participate in the Course Designer track should have prior experience teaching in summer or winter sessions and convert courses that have a proven enrollment “track record” in Summer or Winter Sessions.
III. Quality Booster Track
The Quality Booster track is designed for faculty who are already offering hybrid or online courses, but who have either not previously participated in formal course redesign training through the ADP or participated in ADP prior to the Quality Matters (QM) process integration. Quality Matters is an internationally recognized peer review process to assess the design quality of an online or hybrid course. The goal is to carefully evaluate the components of a hybrid or online course to ensure that it meets nationally identified quality standards. We are currently conducting a pilot of this track with 15 faculty.
The Skill Builder workshops will begin in the Spring 2016 Term; sign up for them now on the Instructional Technology Events page. The next Call for Participation for the Course Designer Track will take place in mid-Spring 2016. We will be seeking participants for the next Quality Booster Track after the midpoint of the Spring 2016 term. Participation requirements for each track are provided here.
To learn more about the Alternate Delivery Program and Quality Matters, attend the Quality Matters-Focused Course Design Workshop on January 13, 2016.
]]>Blackboard course shells for WT2016 and SP2016 were created on November 20, 2015.
Bb shells are available for all courses (designated as lecture, lab, field or discussion) listed in the UMBC Schedule of Classes (SOC), provided that there is an instructor of record listed. As new course sections and/or instructors are added to the SOC, corresponding Bb shells are automatically generated overnight. If you need a shell for a research or independent study course, please submit a new course request.
Instructors who teach multiple sections of the same course will find those enrollments merged into one Bb course shell. These sections can be split upon request an RT ticket. Student enrollment in Bb mirrors the official registration in SA and updates hourly. However, courses are not accessible to students by default until the instructor makes them available.
If you are an instructor, and your name is not associated with the course you are teaching in the SOC, please see your departmental scheduling coordinator to resolve the issue. Once you are listed in the SOC, your Bb course shell will be created automatically.
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