University of Maryland Baltimore
eLearning Steering Committee Meeting Notes
September 14, 2006
Prepared by: Chris Klimas

Attendees: Dave Pitts (SSW), Chris Phillips (CITS), Lila Faulkner (Law), Lowell Wilson (CITS), Chris Klimas (SOP), Shannon Tucker (SOP), Vicky Hunter (CITS), Jim Leoni (CITS), Dan Hughes (CITS), Vavian Cox (CITS), Sarita Sanjoy (Dental) Gulam Samdani (CITS), Alexa Mayo (HS/HSL) 

Blackboard Issues

There have been a number of Blackboard database problems leading to general sluggishness, especially in Blackboard discussion boards. Lowell has been working with Blackboard to try to remedy this, but it has been slow going, and has required multiple reboots. A new policy was decided on, where the campus must be notified of all Blackboard downtime (save for emergency fixes) at least 24 hours in advance. Reboots will be done at 5 am. E-mail will be sent out and system announcements posted to Blackboard, both before and after downtime.

There have been some issues with the newest release of Blackboard and the Firefox browser -- notably the inability to copy and paste into a text field. There are also problems using the rich text editor on Firefox/Mac. For now, we're focusing on the larger issues.

A conference call will be held following the meeting with Blackboard, to continue troubleshooting.

Next meeting: October 12, 2006