When is it happening?
The upgrade will take place at iSolutions’ headquarters in Southampton City Centre.
Blackboard will be unavailable over the weekend of:
Saturday 25 June 2016
Sunday 26 June 2016
Monday 27 June 2016 (contingency day)
What will be happening?
Over this weekend the upgrade team will be
- Upgrading Blackboard
- Applying extra security and stability patches
- Upgrading the Oracle database on which Blackboard runs from version 11 to version 12.
What do I need to do?
If you will require access to any materials on Blackboard over the weekend, download the materials in advance. We have guides on how to download course materials from Blackboard here https://elearn.southampton.ac.uk/blackboard/student/download/
What changes will there be after the upgrade?
A number of updated features will be available. We have already published updated documentation and a one page summary on the elearn.soton website.
In the background a number of key supporting technologies are updated, which places the platform in good standing for more significant updates from the vendor which will be released over the coming 12 months.
A webpage is available listing changes to features that will result from the upgrade.
Will you really take the whole weekend? What about the contingency day?
Our target is for the work to be completed over the weekend, however we reserve the Monday 27 June as a contingency day. If problems occur over the weekend that set us behind schedule we will need to use the contingency day.