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Now known as Blackboard Learning System(TM)--CE Enterprise.

Introduction

Updates from Other Instutitions Using CE6

This is a listing of some of the CE6 issues we are working through. Some have workarounds. Some require patches from WebCT. Note: SP3 has been ok while App Pack I has been buggy and WebCT has released a new version. App Pack 1 is now installed on our server (Jan 2007) - am working through the list and hope to update more soon.

Information/Documents

  1. Support from BB
  2. Check monthly updates from WebCT (see above)
  3. Known WebCT CE6 issues released 18 July 2005 [PDF Format].
  4. According to CE6 Partner Program Panel dated July 2005, CE6 has been "released with a list of known problems".

Announcement Tool

  1. Cannot add an attachment to the posting of announcements. [Lodged by D. Strahan]
    • Reported to WebCT
  2. Announcements should be displayed by latest messages first, rather than oldest messages first. There is a manual method present but it is tedious and cumbersome. [Lodged by W. Wong]
    • Reported to WebCT.
  3. Multiple announcements delete button not working. Can only delete one announcement at a time using an Action Link.

Assessment (Quizzes, Surveys, etc)

  1. There's a bug in the import of assessments from CE 4.1 to 6.1 that adds an extra text string to the path for embedded images in assessment questions (see below). The bug does not exist in the import to CE 6.0.2, only in the import routine for 6.1. A CR has been filed with Blackboard support. (Source: http://ce-annotations.blogspot.com/2006/07/as-weve-been-testing-ce-6.html)
  2. 15-May-06 Groups of students accessing the same assessment in the lab reported problems where sometimes up to half the class or more could not view an image in one of the questions.
  3. As of last week, (1 Nov 2005) when setting up a survey under Assessment, this does not seem to be working properly either. I am transferring across a Course Evaluation from a unit in CE4. In the process of setting up the first question with the answers options: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree and Strongly Disagree; the system is asking me to select one correct answer for this question and it won't save unless I select one correct answer. See below. According to a WebCT Support email, it might be better to suggest to staff to select all options as correct answers. This is ludicrous! [Lodged by W. Wong]
    • WebCT Support have indicated that there is a feature request currently submitted that enables questions to be created without specifying a correct answer (as clearly in a survey there may not be a correct answer). There is no timeline for implementation from WebCT, but as a work around, select any answer as being correct.
  4. In CE4 there was an option of preformatting quizzes as a text file and using CE4 to import into the Quizzes but that has been taken off in CE6. It works only with Respondus.
    • WebCT Support have indicated that with the new questions types, there is no equivalent text file format, and therefore there is no import capability. [Lodged by W. Wong]
  5. 7-Nov-2005 The default setting of the answer label in the Assessment area needs to be for letters rather than numbers. The default point allocated for each multiple question is 10 marks and can that be defaulted to 1 mark. Isn't it better if we can have a choice? [Lodged by W. Wong]
    • WebCT Support have indicated that the default setting of 'numbers' for answer labels in Multiple Choice Questions is intentional. WebCT Support have also indicated that the default points being 10 is also intentional.
  6. 7-Nov-2005 Can titles for the questions under the Assessment area not be unique? It was not unique in the previous CE4.1 edition. What this means is that no question can be saved with the same title which may be needed in some cases for example three different questions created in different sections that have red blood cells as its title. (If I try to edit any of the questions imported from CE4.1, CE 6 keeps asking me to re-save it with a new title). In the assessment properties you have a choice of showing or hiding the titles when it is displayed as a question - is this really required? Quizzes created in Respondus seem to have the capability of bypassing this requirement.

    • WebCT Support have indicated that question titles must be unique for technical reasons regarding the database.
    I don't agree with the reason provided by WebCT Support. If it is unique for the database, then why can this be bypassed by Respondus? Existing questions imported from CE4 into CE6 will also work until you need to edit it. They should set another field to be the unique ID. If some lecturers want to categorise their questions using the Title field for example different questions have red blood cells; why should they be entering red blood cells 1, red blood cells 2, etc... [Lodged by W. Wong] (See Discussion on WebCT.com
  7. Random quizzes using same questions in some quizzes. This one is a bit hard to check because so many quizzes are run and this is based on students' feedback to a lecturer.
  8. 7-Nov-2005 When the quizzes are imported from CE4 to CE6, the answer labels which were letters (i.e. a, b, c) have all been changed to numbers (1, 2, 3, etc). I have used the export function in CE4.1 and it migrates across to CE6 ok but all the labels have changed to letters. Not sure if there is another way to fix this...
    • (Fixed by patch Feb 2006)
  9. The default formatting of WebCT for the questions and answers are not well formatted. There is too much spacing between questions and answers. Quizzes created in CE4.1 occuipies almost twice as much space in CE6. [Lodged by K. Robinson]
  10. There is not enough space provided in the boxes to give feedback to students. Sometimes when you are typing a lot of text into a tiny box, it is a problem when you can't view most of the text you are typing.

Assignments

  1. When checking for student submissions for an individual assignment, clicking on it takes you to all the assignments and it takes a while to load especially if you have a large class. (Lodged by B. Poole)
  2. Publish controls: cannot publish all the assignment at once, have to publish one at a time.

Browser support

  1. The latest browsers may not be supported by WebCT CE6. For example Firefox 1.5 does not work with WebCT CE6.
    • Workaround: A browser check is essential prior to working with CE6.

CE4.1 to CE6

  1. In the content migration process, the header and footer of the main organiser page in each unit/course has a poorly marked up table which needs to be corrected to improve accessibility.
    • Workaround: Remove the table information completely after migration.
  2. CE4 backups do not work in CE6. After using the migration tool, start a fresh backup in CE6.

Course Home Page

  1. In Build mode, icons and text are not aligned correctly but it is fine for the Student View.
  2. Rename of folder on home page - does not get renamed correctly though correct name appears on the breadcrumb trail. This does not happen across the board. I have encountered this as have others (see Ask Dr C)
    • Workaround: According to Will Chaban,
      "we had the same problem, spoke with WebCT Support, and were given a database-level fix that took our problems away. Anyone experiencing this problem should have their admin contact Support. You could cite our support ticket in which this was addressed, RQST00000366105."
    • Our tech support suggested renaming and changing folder icon at the same time would sort it. I don't really want to change the icon, just rename the folder.

Course Menu

  1. Jan-2006 Custom links added to Course Menu cannot be deleted. [Lodged by P. Baldoria]
    • Fixed with SP3 released June 2006.
  2. Jan-2006 Selected custom links cannot be hidden; it is or all nothing scenario.[Lodged by W. Wong]
    • Fixed with SP3 released June 2006.

Course Titles

  1. Using colon in these titles create a nasty error in the system; dash is ok.

Discussions Tool

  1. 21 Aug 2006 - Discussions created via Group Manager. Some groups are cannot access the discussions to post. Still ongoing.
  2. When posting a message to Discussions after saving as a draft, the time of posting is not defaulted to the posting time but the date/time of the original draft first saved.
  3. Student cannot use HTML Creator to add images to discussions.
    • Fixed with Application Pack 1
  4. In the Build or Teach mode, for some units, the Hidden or Conditional messages text have "disappeared". This seems to be a sporadic problem. [Lodged by P. Baldoria]
  5. In the Description for each discussion topic, when you select Use HTML, HTML does not get displayed.
  6. Messages are "missing" from a discussion topic when you click on it. This is also a sporadic problem.
      Reported to WebCT. A fix is promised in June 2005.
  7. Do not click on the number of new messages next to each topic if you are not ready to read them. Once you have clicked it, the new message will disappear even if you have not read them.
    • The work around is to click on the name of the topic.
  8. 19 Apr 2006 - Folders set up to group discussion topics have been converted by WebCT into a hybrid discussion topic folder. This seems to have been happened in the last 2 weeks - caused by a patch? It does not affect top level folders, so far it seems to have affected second level folders. As a result, Add Content link button is no longer available in this hybrid folder. The only link available now is Create Topic. This causes a problem for group discussions created with Group Manager which now cannot be added to these hybrid folders.
  9. When adding bulk topics for example adding a discussion topic for 16 groups, it is ordered in a haphazard manner by WebCT - not alphabetical. It is very tedious and cumbersome to manually move them into some order for units where there are large number of discussions groups and larger number of topics. [Lodged by W. Wong]
  10. Copy function does not work. Currently works exactly like the Move function.[Lodged by W. Wong]
  11. New messages notification icons does not disappear even after threads have been read. Tried clearing Java cache but to no avail. [Lodged by D. Matejka ] Last check of SP3 and App Pack 1 on 19 July 2006"

Files

  1. Feb 2007 - With the App Pack 1, notice now that files uploaded through the MyComputer applet will cause all the filenames to be changed to lower case!
  2. 4-May-06 Student have problems uploading assignments. Browser check is all ok but the uploading function does not work.
  3. File not opening in WebCT as content is blocked by IE.
    • Workaround: In IE, you have to change settings to enable automatic file download. Adobe PDF files will now open in the browser - fixed with SP3.
  4. Uploading files where a copy already exists will cause a problem. It can't replace existing file even though the option is selected.
    • (Fixed with patch Feb 2006)
  5. Do not use Print option in the browser. This will print the required pages plus all the empty frame pages.
    • Workaround: If it is a web page for printing, place mouse over the page, right click to print.
  6. File that has comma in the name cannot be uploaded to WebCT. It causes an Exception error.
    • Rename the file and it will work fine. SP3 has fixed this problem.

Gradebook

  1. 7-Nov-2005 WebCT defaults the students' My Grades order to whichever it is added first into WebCT.
    • Workaround : In CE 6.0 you need to be in the Gradebook->View All tab before reording the columns so they appear in the same order when viewed by students through My Grades. Reordering in the Gradebook-> Grades or Gradebook->Members view will not transfer to the student's view of My Grades. (Courtesy B. Boufford)
  2. Gradebook columns have been created for the corresponding surveys in each unit. This is not necessary and add additional unnecessary columns to an already cumbersome Gradebook. Assessment Manager also has information if a survey has been completed or not so not sure why this was a needed feature. [Lodged by M. Griffith]
    • Reported to WebCT Support.
  3. New survey created is deleted but the corresponding Gradebook column is not removed by WebCT. Has to be manually removed. [Lodged by W. Wong]

HTML Creator

  1. Do not allow HTML Creator to be ON by default. It arbitrarily changes the files you have created.[Lodged by P. Baldoria]
    • Workaround: This does not happen when you edit with the HTML Creator defaulted to Off, then clicking it On.
  2. When typing into a text box, WebCT will often loses context as if I have clicked outside the context box. There appears to be no consistent cause. [Lodged by B. Poole]
  3. The doctype for the main pages are HTML 4.0 Transitional. However the doctype for files created via HTML Creator is xhtml or what looks like an incomplete doctype declaration. [Lodged by W. Wong]
  4. The title is a required field in the head section of a web page. When you use the HTML Creator, we are required to enter a title but it is not written back into the title element in the web page created. [Lodged by W. Wong]
  5. No support for use of relative links. One of the worse problems we have had is the lack of support for relative links in WebCT CE6. Such sites worked in CE4 (and even in other web servers but not in CE6) and a few lecturers had been put off with the manual editing of the links to allow the pages/links to work in CE6. [Lodged by W. Wong/T. Bekema]
    1. While HTML editor works fine, it is more efficient/friendly to use an external HTML editor, like Frontpage or Dreamweaver, especially, when drawing on existing Word documents, etc, to get the document ready for uploading to WebCT6.
    2. When linking the document one is working on (current document) to another one already on webct, the transfer of the HREF of the document on WebCT by typing it in the current document (on the external editor) does not hold when uploaded to WebCT - one has to open the document in the WebCT HTML editor and manually adjust the reference. - and then it works fine . But this is not very efficient when there are a number of links, and of course, when the document needs revision, the uploaded document needs to be manually fixed again in the WebCT HTML editor.
    3. Mirroring the WebCT structure of folders and documents in Frontpage enables one to create the links within Frontpage (without having to obtain from the WebCT document the HREF associated with that document) - so that they work fine when tested on the local browser; but when uploaded, the links don't hold, and the links in the uploaded document need to be manually adjusted in the WebCT HTML editor - hardly efficient - and resulting in duplicate files - one to hold on the external editor for revision, and the other on WebCT in which the HREFs have been manually adjusted.
    4. There is a need to be able to transfer the links created on the external document as 'document relative', so that the relationship between the documents is maintained (and hence the links), in much the same way as external editors do when uploading documents to a remote webserver, rather than having to redefine the links to the webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template root.
      Notes from T. Bekema
    • WebCT Response 15 May 06: This is a known issue with the HTML Creator in CE6. It is currenty scheduled to be fixed in the CE6 Application Pack due out over the summer. For the present, probably the easiest work-arounds for faculty is to create HTML files on the top level of the My Files area. This allows the HTML code to be correct for any sub-folders. I am not sure if this is feasible for the larger courses since it could end up in a rather messy My Files area, but hopefully it will get your faculty through the summer courses until the release of the Application Pack. (Courtesy: T. Bradley, Simon Fraser University)

Java applets

  1. Java loads very slowly. Some times takes a while for My WebCT to appear.
  2. Current version recommended 1.5.05; will work with Java 1.4.2.09
  3. Will cause browser to crash if two versions of Java exists on the PC. (Win).
    • Workaround: Old version needs to be uninstalled.
  4. Java cache settings need to be cleared from time to time but the notifications icons do not indicate the status of messages, emails, etc accurately.

Learning Modules

  1. When adding a number of files to a Learning Module, the files are added haphazardly (not even alphabetical) (compared to CE4.1) requiring manual moving of items.
  2. When using the move tool in the learning modules, sometimes it will move the items in an ascending sequence and sometimes in a descending order - very annoying... [Lodged by W. Wong]
  3. Discrepancy between the Build and Instructor/Student View for breadcrumb trails when adding the modules directly to a folder in the Organiser Home page.

Macs with WebCT

  1. 23 April 2005 Another user logging on the same Mac which is working fine for one user but causes problems for this other user. Can't get pass My WebCT - starts spinning ... [Lodged by J. Siebols/L. Chircorp]
  2. Using WebCT with Macs sometimes causes the browsers to crash even with Safari or Firefox. Have to force quit and restart again. [Lodged by M. Griffith/J. Siebols]
  3. Problems using Chat tool - crashes.

Mail

  1. Is there a way to set the listing of mail (inbox and sent) with the most recent at the top instead of the bottom. I have clicked the date but it keeps deflecting back to the oldest first. Is there a way to change the default setting? [Lodged by D. Strahan]
    • Reported to WebCT
  2. Clicking on new messages in Inbox sometimes takes you to the new messages and sometimes it doesn't.
  3. Clicking on Send Email results in Page cannot be displayed message. [Lodged by M. Cranitch]
  4. Delays in emails sent within the system. This is a known CE6 problem and has been reported at University of Utah. [Lodged by J. Siebols/ M. Maguire]

Media Library

  1. Thumbnails for images added do not appear for the Media Library items. This is missing and should be put back as a feature (which was available in CE4.1) [Lodged by J. Siebols]
    • With App Pack 1, thumbnails have now been included. HOWEVER, this has caused new problems. -- 12-Apr-07
  2. 7 Feb 2006 When adding individual entries for the glossary or other collections in Media Library, the title does not allow for entry of apostrophe. This poses a problem when you need to add 's.... Error message: The entry title may not contain any of the following characters : <, >, ', "

Metadata

  1. 7-Nov-2005 Metadata information - Have to be manually updated in WebCT. As the metadata is coded in each web page using Dublin core or whichever standard WebCT 6 is using, that information should be automatically updated by WebCT CE6 so that it will appear in the search page. Then we don't have to manually re-code each page with the correct information as that is very time consuming.

My WebCT Course Listing

  1. Units/Courses need to be listed by unit/course number first then name of the unit/course.
  2. Feature to display course listing demarcated by major categories like Semester missing (which was in CE4.1)
  3. Campus Announcements box in My WebCT page: Problem arises when a staff/student has a long listing of courses in My WebCT and will miss the announcement box as it appears below the course listing. Should be moved either to the left or right column box. Already made known to WebCT Staff at last WebCT AP conference, Sept 2005 when it was previewed at the conference..
    • Ability to move the Campus Announcement from below Course listing - Fixed with Application Pack 1

Upload problems

  1. 1-May-06 Used to work on some computers but upload function is not working correctly even with correct version of Java and browser, etc. The MyComputer icon does not appear. A red cross appears. Students have to move the mouse to over this X area till they get a clickable area and cursor will turn to a hand and then the other browse link will then appear (usually).

Usability Issues

  1. Some functions not intuitive; clunky.

Web Accessibility

  1. 7-Nov-2005 Stylesheet uses px for font sizes so cannot enlarge in IE browsers. Some students need to view the web page in slightly larger sizes.
    • According to WebCT Support, WebCT CE6 is S508 compliant. We have not been able to check this or verify that WebCT CE6 is usable with screen readers, etc, as yet. Temporary work around is to get IE to ignore stylesheet used on WebCT.

Wimba PowerLinks

  1. None of the original voice recordings in previous version of Wimba can be exported to current version of Wimba. Awaiting resolution from Wimba.
    • This has been fixed - March 2007

Miscellaneous

  1. 3/5/06 In Student View for lecturer, the Course Content Home page has "disappeared". (Lodged by L. Woods)
  2. Occasionally, you are kicked out from the system when you are in the middle of doing something for example clicking on Save in one section in the Build mode. Not sure what is causing this to happen.
  3. Clicking on Auto Refresh in Who's Online also kicked the user out. This may have been fixed.

Status of Patches

  1. Jan 2007 - App Pack applied.
  2. Release of a new version to update problems of App Pack 1
  3. Application Pack 1 is out - buggy
  4. June 2006 Service Pack 3
  5. April 2006
  6. Early Feb 2006
  7. Nov 2005
  8. Aug 2005

BlackBoard patent

  1. US Patent filed by BB
  2. Tim O'Reilly's response to the patent
  3. Another response: No Education Patents
  4. Blackboard sues, get sued
  5. Diana J Muir V Blackboard (PDF)