Blackboard Known Issues

The following is a list of current known issues regarding Blackboard NG (Release 9.1) at NIU. ITS is aware of these issues and is working with Blackboard to provide fixes in future service packs to the system. If you encounter any additional issues, please report them by contacting the ITS Helpdesk at 815-753-8100 or email helpdesk@niu.edu.

Incomplete or no submissions occurring in the Self and Peer Assessment Tool

Posted:  03/22/2012 11:00 AM, CC

Student submission to the Self and Peer Assessment tool are incomplete or not recorded due to a problem with the text editor.  This problem occurs whether text is typed directly into the text editor or whether text is pasted either directly into the text editor from MS Word or via the "Paste from Word" mashup feature.

Workaround:  Students should use Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac) to type their assessments and paste from these applications.  Additionally, if a student wishes to upload a file, they should use Firefox as the browser.

ITS is waiting to receive a patch for this problem from Blackboard.

Grade Center Columns for Deleted Graded Discussion Forums Cannot Be Deleted

Posted:  01/25/2012 3:21 PM, SR

When a discussion forum is created as a graded forum, a column is automatically created in the Grade Center. If the discussion forum is then deleted, the column remains in the Grade Center and cannot be deleted. This issue can also occur during a Course Copy, if Grade Center Settings are copied but the Discussion Board is not (and graded discussion forums exist).

There are two workarounds: Faculty can hide the column from the student view and then hide the column from the instructor view OR faculty can use Bulk Delete to remove all Grade Center columns and settings. WARNING: using Bulk Delete to delete the Grade Center can permanently delete student grades and any Assignment or Test submissions that have been made.

Continual "high load" alerts being report regarding SafeAssign submissions

Posted:  12/05/2011 8:42 AM, CC

Blackboard continues to report that SafeAssign services are experiencing delays due to high usage. This is resulting in longer processing times for assignments.  

External Links Unable to be Added to the Content Collection

Posted: 10/26/2011 9:00 AM, CC

The ability to add an external link to the Content Collection is temporarily disabled due to its dependence upon a new feature of the Content Collection that we have experienced some bugs with.

This feature should be restored in the spring 2012 semester.

Autosave Interferes with Short Answer Response when File Response Questions Exist

Posted: 10/26/2011 9:00 AM, CC

When a student is completing an assessment with questions being presented all at once, if a File Response question occurs along with Short Answer questions and the student is typing a response when Autosave initiates, the cursor jumps to the beginning of the textbox, interfering with the Short Answer response.

This issue occurs in Firefox.  Until the issue is resolved by Blackboard, the workaround is to present questions one-at-a-time.

UPDATE: 10/26/2011 - This issue is targeted to be fixed in Release 9.1, Service Pack 9, which will be released late 1st quarter of 2012.

Students cannot create threads on the default Group discussion forum

Posted: 09/08/2011 10:04 AM, SR

When Groups are created with the Group Discussion Board enabled, a forum is automatically created with the same name as the group. This default forum is set so that students cannot create new threads, which means that they cannot post to the discussion forum until a thread is created by someone with the Instructor role.

As a work around, the faculty member can edit the group discussion forums and select the option "Allow Members to Create New Threads."

UPDATE: 10/26/2011 - This issue is targeted to be fixed in Release 9.1, Service Pack 9, which will be released late 1st quarter of 2012.

Group Discussion Boards are available even though availability dates have been set for the future

Posted: 09/08/2011 10:00 AM, SR

Forums created on Group discussion boards are accessible to students even if the forum is set to display after a future date. In addition, students are able to modify some of the forum settings within their Group discussion boards.

Blackboard is aware of the issue and is working on a patch.

Quicktime (.mov) videos will not play in Internet Explorer

Posted: 08/26/2011 3:04 PM, SR

Quicktime (.mov) videos which are uploaded to Blackboard will not play in Internet Explorer. This is a confirmed bug and is being looked at by Blackboard's Product Development team.

Since this issue only applies to Internet Explorer, students are encouraged to use a different browser to access Quicktime video content.

Browsers Not Certified for Blackboard

Posted: 8/26/2011, 3:10 PM, SR

At present, the following browsers are NOT certified or recommended for use with Blackboard and should be avoided by faculty and students when accessing Blackboard:

• Internet Explorer 9 on Windows XP (compatible on Windows Vista or Windows 7)
• Firefox 5
• Firefox 6

A complete listing of supported browsers and operating systems is available here.

Podcasting Tool Building Block Incompatibility

Posted: 08/19/2011, 3:48 PM, CC

NIU's podcasting tool, the open source OSCELOT Podcaster building block, has yet to be upgraded to be compatible with Blackboard 9.1. The open source community who has developed the building block is working to upgrade the building block to be compatible with the latest version of Blackboard.

UPDATE: The source of incompatibility has been identified and confirmed by Blackboard as of 8/17/2011, and a fix is in progress.

Intermittant SafeAssign Submissions Using Safari on Mac Not Found

posted: 07/13/2011 1:18 PM, JR

Intermittant reports of student submissions of SafeAssignments resulting in an "InstanceNotFound" error message have been received. In all of the incidents, students were using the Safari browser on a Mac which does not allow third party cookies by default.

Students using the Safari browser are encouraged to adjust their security settings in their Safari browser in Safari > Preferences > Security to "Accept cookies: Always" 

Copied SafeAssignment Links

When copying deployed SafeAssignments in Blackboard 9.1, the links to the deployed SafeAssignments in the destination course still point to the former (source) course. The result is when a student clicks the link to submit a copied SafeAssignment, an error message is displayed.

The current workaround is for the faculty member to edit each deployed SafeAssignment in the destination course after the course copy. After ensuring that Edit Mode is enabled, click the action link (ie: double-down arrow button) next to the deployed SafeAssignment and then click the "Submit" button to save changes. **NOTE - No actual edits need to be made to the title or description of the SafeAssignment, simply the act of editing and then submitting the changes corrects the link for the students to submit a SafeAssignment.

Last updated:01/25/2012, 3:25 PM