Blackboard News

Bb Mobile Learn is available and has been updated. The maintenance work on Bb is complete this morning as of 8:39 am PST. 

During the planned maintenance window, Mobile Learn was unavailable briefly while the building block was updated. The rest of Blackboard remained operational throughout the maintenance period.

A campus-wide system maintenance period has been confirmed for Sunday, 11/9/14 5:00 am – 7:00 am PST. Campus-wide services, including Blackboard, may be slow or unavailable during this period of time.

All systems are expected to remain available throughout the maintenance period.

Previously, this systems maintenance period was reserved for a longer period of time, 3:00 am – 8:00 am.

For more information about this system maintenance  please contact the UO TechDesk at techdesk@uoregon.edu or 346-HELP, or see http://status.uoregon.edu/.

Services were restored at approximately 8:55AM.

11/7/14. Around 7:45AM, service degradations to a wide range of UO websites and services, including email, the UO homepage (www.uoregon.edu), Blackboard (blackboard.uoregon.edu), and others reported.

Users reported an inability or intermittent ability to load pages and log in to services.

Blackboard-specific questions should be directed to

UO Libraries Blackboard Support Team
541-346-1942
blackboard@ithelp.uoregon.edu

For any other questions, please contact the Technology Service Desk:

UO Technology Service Desk
Information Services
541-346-HELP
techdesk@uoregon.edu
facebook.com/UOTechDesk | twitter.com/UOTechDesk

Blackboard will be undergoing maintenance on Saturday Nov 8 from 8am PST until 10am PST. During this time the latest version of the Mobile Learn building block will be installed. Mobile Learn will not be available for part of the maintenance period but the rest of Blackboard will be unaffected.

On Saturday November 1 from 8am until 10am we will be upgrading SafeAssign to the latest version to fix a permissions problem that some students are experiencing. During this time SafeAssign will be unavailable for a short period. The rest of Blackboard will be unaffected by this update.

Thank you so very much for your patience this last week. Last week i>clicker notified us of the recent potential security vulnerability of SSL v3. As promised, they now have an update to the i>clicker software, v6.4.2, that utilizes a different security protocol to replace SSLv3.

Since this update is happening mid-term, you can find the compressed i>clicker / Bb Integrate files on our site which you will be extracting and placing in the Resources folder after you have updated your software via the WebUpdate application in your i>clicker folder.

It was brought to our attention that iGrader’s synchronization with Blackboard via the integrate module is not working due to potential security vulnerability of SSL v3.  We are awaiting a response from iClicker on a patch that should be available any day now. In the meantime please continue to poll in class and inform your students that iClicker grades will be posted by the end of the week the absolute latest.  I hope this does not cause any inconvenience.

LAST WEEK’S I>CLICKER ANNOUNCEMENT:

You have likely heard of the recent potential security vulnerability of SSL v3. As an appreciated and valued customer, we wanted to let you know as soon as possible that we are aware of this issue and let you know that your faculty users could experience issues using i>clicker as a result of this vulnerability.

Technical Explanation: i>clicker software versions 6.4.1 and earlier utilize the SSL v3 communication protocol. As a result, clients using i>clicker 6.4.1 and earlier versions of i>clicker may experience issues with LMS integrations, which includes roster sync and grade upload. So far, we have reports of issues with Canvas, Sakai, and Blackboard due to these companies disabling this communication protocol to mitigate any potential risk for secure http (https) connections.

Steps we are taking:  We are diligently working on an update, v6.4.2, which will utilize a different security protocol to replace SSLv3. All i>clicker 6.x (and earlier) users will need to update to this version to avoid disruptions with LMS integrations. This update should be available sometime next week. In the interim, instructors can continue to use i>clicker 6.4.1 with manual LMS integration rather than i>clicker integrate if it is necessary for them to sync a roster or upload grades. We plan to communicate with faculty tomorrow afternoon to alert them of this issue as well.

There remain some potential issues that relate to this same issue:

• i>clicker GO communicates with the GO servers using SSL v3. We are going to be updating the GO communication protocol and anticipate no issues with the usage of GO in class.
• The i>clicker registration database also uses SSL v3 to communicate with i>grader for Sync and other functionality. Again, we anticipate no issues with registration data communications.

We are monitoring the situation very closely and will update you immediately if necessary. As soon as the software update is available, we will communicate directly with you.

http://support.iclicker.com/customer/portal/articles/1730905-what-is-the-ssl-v3-security-vulnerability-and-how-do-i-know-if-it-affects-me-?b_id=3390

IS will be installing some critical database patches on October 28 during the 5am-7am maintenance period. There will be downtime from 5:30am until 6:30am.