LMS news

Subject Experience Survey launched for Semester 1

The Subject Experience Survey (SES) is now open for most Semester 1 subjects.

Students can login using the link on their 'My Surveys' module on their LMS 'My Home' tab or directly through the link above.

Each survey takes approximately 5 minutes to complete and support materials including PowerPoint slides are available for you to promote the survey to your students.

Lecture Capture issues (2nd May)

Lecture Capture is experiencing intermittent technical issues which cause playback to either not start, or timeout during playback.

Technical investigations are underway to resolve these issues. In the interim, please try again in a few minutes.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Midyear Maintenance July 11-12

This year's midyear LMS maintenance window is scheduled for Thursday 11th to Friday 12th July.

As in previous maintenance events, the LMS will be unavailable for a period of time. The LMS will be unavailable for the shortest amount of time possible, but an extended period has been scheduled for this complex work.

The good news is that during this maintenance event we will be implementing the latest Blackboard Service Pack. You will notice some great new and improved tools to support teaching and learning, as well as an updated look and feel.

LMS mobile app available

The Blackboard Mobile Learn app is now available. Staff and students can download the app from their usual app store/marketplace. The app provides anywhere, anytime access to the LMS for actions such as checking announcements or subject content. Read more.

Respondus 2013 licence update

If you installed Respondus on your computer prior to 1st January 2013 you will be advised the licence has expired the first time Respondus is started in 2013. The new licence key is now available for Respondus use in 2013.

Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts unavailable - Saturday 29th December, 12.00am to 8.00am

Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts in the LMS will be unavailable 12.00am to 8.00am on Saturday 29th December while the service is migrated to a new data centre.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

If you have any issues resulting from this downtime please contact the Service Desk.

Provision of SES Feedback to Students

SES Policy requires departments to communicate the outcomes of the SES to students. New guidelines are in place to assist faculties in meeting these requirements: visit the Survey Results page on the SES website for details.

New LMS Workshop: LMS for Library Staff

Have you ever wanted to know how the LMS might be useful in your role in the Library?

Reserve your place for a hands-on introduction to functionality in the LMS that can help you promote Library resources and services to staff and students. Enrol through Themis.

When: Monday 26th November 11am-12:30pm
Repeat session: Wednesday 5th December 2-3:30pm

Portal logins disrupted due to planned maintenance

Students logging in to the Student Portal may be required to login again to gain access to the LMS due to maintenance work. The full advisory from ITS to students reads as follows:

ITS maintenance affecting some Portal functions — Tuesday 6 November 6-8.30pm

ITS maintenance will be carried out between 6pm and 8.30pm, Tuesday 6th November, which will mean that ‘single-sign-on’ functionality will be unavailable when accessing some parts of your Portal. This may impact Portal services such as email, the library and LMS. These functions will still be available, however you may be prompted to re-enter your password before performing any action within these sections of your Portal.

PLEASE NOTE: It will not be possible to reset your password during this time. If you need to reset your password for any reason (eg. to view your exam timetable), please do this before or after the maintenance occurs.

We apologise for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience while we carry out this essential work.

Subject Experience Survey launched for Semester 2

The Subject Experience Survey (SES) is now open for most Semester 2 subjects.

Students can login using the link on their 'My Surveys' module on their LMS 'My Home' tab or directly through the link above.

Each survey takes approximately 5 minutes to complete and support materials including PowerPoint slides are available for you to promote the survey to your students.

Lecture Capture Options paper

The Lecture Capture Working Group has prepared an options paper (login required) on whether or not the lecture capture system should move to Opt Out.

Turnitin: Service degradation

Turnitin experienced a degradation of service between 12:00pm - 3:45pm on Monday 10th September 2012. Some users may have had issues with submission, viewing or creation of assignments through Turnitin.

Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts read-only - Sunday 22nd July

Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts in the LMS will be available for viewing only from 1.00am to 7.00am on Sunday 22nd July. Staff and students will be able to view existing material in these tools, but will be unable to edit or add new content.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

If you have any issues resulting from this downtime please contact the Service Desk.

LMS unscheduled outage

The LMS was unavailable from 9pm Wednesday 11th July until 9.45 am Thursday 12th July due an unexpected technical issue.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

If you have any issues resulting from this downtime please contact the Service Desk.

Subject availability changes for Semester 2

On Friday 13 July at 10am LMS subjects in the following teaching periods will automatically be made available to enrolled students:

• 2012_SM2
• 2012_RS2

LMS subjects in the following teaching periods will be made unavailable at the same time:

• 2012_SUM
• 2012_SM1
• 2012_RS1
• 2011 and earlier subjects

This change will not affect subjects you have already made available.

If you have subjects in other 2012 teaching periods which will not be automatically made available on Friday 13 July (eg: 2012_SEP or 2012_TM2), you must perform this task manually:

1. Go to Control Panel >> Customisation >> Properties.
2. Set 'Make Subject Available' = 'Yes'
3. Select 'Submit'.

Turnitin: Unavailable Sunday 17th June 2012, 12:00am - 4:00am

Turnitin will be unavailable in the LMS whilst the Turnitin website undergoes scheduled system maintenance.

Submission or creation of Turnitin assignments will not be possible during this period.

Lecture Capture - unscheduled outage

Lecture Capture was unavailable on Saturday 5 May and Sunday 6 May due to an unexpected technical issue. Service was restored 9:20am Monday 7 May.

If you have any issues resulting from this downtime, please contact the Service Desk.

Expired certificate in LMS (Resolved)

Blackboard have advised that an expired Java certificate warning may appear from Monday 16th April when using the text box editor (eg: adding an item, attempting a test) or uploading multiple files to folders in the Content Collection. You may be prompted to either 'allow' or 'deny' the expired certificate. We are working with the vendor to receive a patch to resolve this issue. As an interim measure, select 'allow' to continue using the LMS and the warning should not be displayed again on this computer.

Lecture capture maintenance

The lecture capture service will be temporarily unavailable for a total of 8 hours between 10am Wednesday 11 April and 5pm Thursday 12 April for scheduled maintenance.

Turnitin: Intermittent issue (Resolved)

The Turnitin global service experienced intermittent issues with assignment submission during the week of the 19th of March. Some students were presented with a message during submission indicating there was an error with processing the assignment submission. However, all documents were successfully submitted.

Although this error message may have caused a temporary lack of confidence about the success of the submission, please be assured the submission process was successful (the Turnitin submission receipt ID is evidence of the successful submission).

Turnitin: Unavailable Sunday 4th March 2012, 2:00am - 6:00am

Turnitin will be unavailable in the LMS whilst the Turnitin website undergoes scheduled system maintenance.

Submission or creation of Turnitin assignments will not be possible during this period.

LMS login issues

Login to the LMS was disrupted on the 14th February, 2012 between approximately 4pm and 6pm due to ITS network connectivity issues that affected multiple systems. These issues have now been resolved. If you have any further questions please contact us.

LMS unscheduled outage

The LMS was experiencing slow performance and was restarted to address these issues on 7th of February, 2012. The outage affected users from about 12.25pm to 1.25pm and required a restart of the system. If you have any further questions please contact us.

Respondus 2012 licence update

If you installed Respondus on your computer prior to 1st January 2012 you will be advised the licence has expired the first time Respondus is started in 2012. The new licence key is now available for Respondus use in 2012.

Blogs, wikis and podcasts - short outage

Blogs, wikis and podcasts will be unavailable for approximately four hours from Friday 9th December 11:00pm to Saturday 10th December 3:00am whilst the Learning Objects service undergoes scheduled system maintenance. Accessing blog, wiki, and podcast content will not be possible during this outage.

The LMS will be unavailable on Saturday 26 November and Monday 12 December

The LMS will be unavailable between 7am and 7 pm on Saturday 26 November due to university network maintenance (ITS Announce).

The LMS will also be unavailable between 8am and 9pm on Monday 12 December due to LMS maintenance.

Students and staff will not be able to access the LMS during these times. We apologise for any inconvenience.

Nominating 2012 subjects

Nominations for 2012 subjects can be made with your LMS Representative from 12 October. Subjects will be created on the LMS from 24 October. This is the first round of nominations since the upgrade to Blackboard 9.1 in July 2011, and staff will now be able to benefit from some of the changes that were made behind the scenes.  

In particular, there is new advice regarding the application of permissions to files in the Content Collection - it's (almost) all done automatically now, and blogs/wikis/podcasts - new and better options exist to streamline subject creation.

For further information, please refer to the subject nominations advice page.

Blogs, wikis and podcasts unavailable on Sunday 18th September

Blogs, wikis and podcasts will be unavailable on Sunday 18th September 2011 from 3:00 am to 4:00 am whilst the Learning Objects service undergoes scheduled system maintenance.  Accessing blog, wiki, and podcast content will not be possible during this outage.

The LMS upgrade has been successful.

We are pleased to announce that the LMS has been successfully upgraded to the new version.
We look forward to assisting staff to make the most of the enhanced teaching and learning opportunities provided by the innovative new tools and improved features.
For more details about the upgrade.
Staff are invited to join our drop-in help sessions from 10.00am - 12.00pm every day next week (Monday 11th - Friday 15th July).
Full schedule of drop-ins and workshops
Venue: Learning Studio, G17 Elisabeth Murdoch building.
If you have any further queries, please contact the Service Desk

The LMS upgrade will begin this weekend on Saturday 2 July.

The LMS will be unavailable this Saturday 2 July for approximately one hour beginning at 9am.
Following this, the LMS will then be available in a temporary Read-Only form until the upgrade is complete.

In the Read-Only LMS, staff and students have their usual access to content and resources in subjects and communities. However, any changes made in this temporary version (such as content that is added to, or changed, or any new activity such as assignment submissions, or discussion or wiki postings) will not be carried forward into the new LMS.

We thank you for your patience during the upgrade.

LMS upgrade - delayed start

The LMS upgrade dates are now Saturday 2nd July - Sunday 10th July.
The LMS upgrade will be delayed by one week to give greater certainty of a successful upgrade.
The LMS upgrade will now occur between Saturday 2nd July - Sunday 10th July. All LMS activities can occur until Friday 1st July in the current version, and then resume post-upgrade in the brand new LMS.
The LMS will be unavailable on Saturday 2nd July for approximately an hour beginning at 9.00am.
Following this, the LMS will then be available in a temporary Read-Only form until the upgrade is complete.
The Read-Only LMS will give staff and students usual access to content and resources in subjects and communities, however any changes made in this temporary version (such as content that is added to, or changed, or any new activity such as assignment submissions, or discussion or wiki postings) will not be carried forward into the new LMS.
If these Read-Only constraints pose any difficulties for subjects actively taught during this revised time period, please contact the LMS Academic Support team for further advice.
Staff can find out more detail about the upgrade arrangements, resources and events.
We thank you for your patience during the preparations for the upgrade.

The LMS Academic Support team

Turnitin unavailable between 7:30pm and 9:45pm Wednesday 8th June 2011

Turnitin was unavailable for 2.25 hours on Wednesday evening due to a major network outage in the Turnitin primary datacenter.

The issue has now been resolved.

If you have any issues resulting from the downtime, please contact the Service Desk.

Availability of LMS subjects for Semester 2, 2011.

To assist students in their preparation for study, all 2011 Semester 2 LMS subjects with teaching periods 2011_SM2 and 2011_RS2 will automatically be made available to students at 10am on Friday 22 July 2011.

Any 2011 subjects already available to students by this date will not be affected by the system change.

In addition, all 2011 LMS subjects with teaching periods 2011_SM1, 2011_RS1, and pre-2011 LMS subjects will automatically be made unavailable to students at the same time 10am on Friday 22 July 2011.

Please note: the subject availability for all other teaching periods, such as 2011_JAN, 2011_MAY, 2011_JUL, 2011_WIN etc. will need to be changed by staff in each subject as required.

More information about 'Available' and 'Unavailable' LMS subject status.

Semester 2 LMS subject nominations

LMS subject nominations will continue to be processed as normal via your LMS representative and the nomination process.

Nominated subjects will be created on the LMS until 30th June. Subject nominations received after 30th June will be queued ready for processing as soon as the LMS is fully functional, following the upgrade.

We suggest nominating your subjects early and do not wait until after the upgrade as this may cut down your development time prior to the start of semester 2.

All development of LMS subjects should cease for the entire duration of the ‘Read-only’ period of the upgrade. Changes will not be carried forward into the upgraded LMS.

LMS unavailable: between 9.30pm and 11pm Tuesday 10th May 2011.

The LMS was unavailable from 9.30pm and 11pm Tuesday 10th May due to an unexpected technical issue.

We acknowledge that this is a critical time of semester and apologise for any inconvenience caused.

If you have any issues resulting from the downtime, please contact the Service Desk.

LMS subjects & multiple ISIS subject availabilities

ISIS allows for students in the same class to be enrolled in different availabilities of the subject. Read more.

Multiple availabilities of a subject can be cohort linked in the LMS so that staff only have to maintain one LMS site.

If cohort linking should be established for your subjects please contact your LMS representative.

LMS upgrade mid-2011

Dear colleagues,
The LMS Steering Committee is very pleased to report that the University will be upgrading the LMS in early July 2011, and will be available for use by staff and students in time for Semester 2.

The new LMS provides a more contemporary and flexible interface, improvements for staff in the management of their subject sites, and benefits to students in their updated learning environment. We hope to use this upgrade to the LMS as an opportunity to re-invigorate staff interest and uptake in the use of these tools to support student motivation and engagement with their learning activities.

The LMS Academic Support team will be providing regular communications with details of the upgrade schedule and LMS support events, training workshops and online resources to encourage staff to make use of these new features in their teaching and subject design.

In the meantime, our very best wishes for a successful start to Semester 1 on the LMS.

Best wishes,
Professor Philippa Pattison
Pro Vice Chancellor (Learning & Teaching)

LMS Access problems for some users from Sunday 6th to Wednesday 9th February.

Due to a technical problem many staff and students were unable to log in to the LMS or access all of their subjects and communities from Sunday 6th to Wednesday 9th February. Access is being progressively restored.

If you have any further problems or questions, please submit a helpdesk request.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

Availability of LMS subjects for Semester 1, 2011.

To assist students in their preparation for study, all 2011 Semester 1 LMS subjects (2011_SM1) will automatically be made available to students on Friday 18 February 2011. In addition, subjects in the 2011_RS1 and 2011_YRL teaching periods will be made available on the same date.

Any 2011 subjects already available to students by this date will not be affected by the system change.

In addition, all 2010 LMS subjects will be made unavailable to students on this date.

More information about 'Available' and 'Unavailable' LMS subject status.

Staff developing LMS subject sites for 2011 can refer to the 'LMS framework for subject presence: a guide for subject planning at the University of Melbourne' which outlines core elements for LMS subject sites.

Further information about LMS subject development, staff development and support.

LMS unavailable: 8:00am - 9:30pm Saturday 29th January 2011.

The LMS will be unavailable between 8:00am - 9:30pm Saturday 29th January 2011 for scheduled maintenance. This means that the LMS system as well as any LMS links (e.g. in Student Portal) will be unavailable during this period.

If you have any issues resulting from the downtime, please contact the Service Desk.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

 

LMS planned outage: between 9am and 5pm Saturday 16th October 2010.

The LMS will be unavailable from 9am to 5pm, Saturday 16th October, for essential technical maintenance to rectify current system issues.

We acknowledge that this is a critical time of semester and apologise for the short notice and the inconvenience this may cause.

If you have any issues resulting from the downtime, please contact the Service Desk.

LMS unavailable: between 8am Saturday 2nd October and 2pm Sunday 3rd October for maintenance.

The LMS will be unavailable between 8am Saturday 2nd October and 2pm Sunday 3rd October for scheduled technical maintenance. This means that the LMS system as well as any LMS links (e.g. in Student Portal) will be unavailable during this period.
If you have any issues resulting from the downtime, please contact the Service Desk.
We apologise for any inconvenience.

TURNITIN: Unavailable Sunday 5th September, 3:00am - 11:00am

Turnitin will be unavailable in the LMS whilst the Turnitin website undergoes scheduled system maintenance.

Submission or creation of Turnitin assignments will not be possible during this period.

Availability of LMS subjects for semester 2, 2010

To assist students in their preparation for study, all 2010 Semester 2 LMS subjects will automatically be made 'Available' to students at 10am on Friday 16 July 2010.

All past LMS subject instances will be made 'Unavailable' to students at 10am on Friday 23 July 2010.

Note: Any subjects already made 'Available' to students by this date will not be affected by this system change.

For more information about 'Available' and 'Unavailable' LMS subject status please see Setting up your subject.

Staff developing LMS subject sites for Semester 2 can refer to the 'LMS framework for subject presence: a guide for subject planning at the University of Melbourne' which outlines core elements for LMS subject sites.

Further information about LMS subject development, staff development and support.

LMS unavailable: Saturday 26th June 2010

The LMS will be unavailable between 9am and 6pm Saturday 26th June to allow important maintenance and technical fixes to be applied.
Maintenance schedule
We apologise for any inconvenience.

Nominating LMS subjects for Semester 2.

Subjects taught in semester 2 2010 may now be nominated and subject sites created on the LMS.
Please follow any advice or processes previously provided by your LMS representative.
The nomination process is detailed here.

Please be aware that while subject sites may be created on the LMS, student enrolments were not added until 9th June.

Subject sites already created on the LMS are listed in the Subject and Community Catalogue.
Subjects with cohort dependencies are listed in the Cohort linked subjects page.

Turnitin: Unscheduled downtime between 12:00pm - 1.00pm on Tuesday April 27th

Turnitin experienced a global unscheduled outage at all institutions, preventing students submitting assessment and teaching staff from viewing reports for existing submissions. The issue has been resolved and functionality has been restored.

Submission or creation of Turnitin assignments was not possible during this period.

New subject codes and dual display

The University is introducing a new student system called ISIS in June 2010 to replace Merlin, the current student system.
New subject codes will come into effect on 7 June 2010, however from 27 April 2010 they will be shown in a number of University-wide systems including the LMS, Handbook and Student Portal.
To help with this transition both the old Merlin codes and the new ISIS codes will be displayed in these systems until the end of 2010.

More detailed information about the new ISIS codes and dual display of subject codes.

The new subject codes are explained in this Fact Sheet on the Student System Project website.

For further information about ISIS see the ISIS website.

ITS announcement: Outage of the University's internet connection

Information Technology Services advise that there is a scheduled service outage for an upgrade of the University Internet connection.

An outage window has been scheduled for Saturday 10th April 2010 from 6pm to 12am.

Users will experience intermittent short delays (approximately 10 minute intervals) in connecting to the internet during this time. Access to and from the University via the internet will be affected, although access within the university network will remain unaffected.

LMS users are advised that due to this work on the University’s internet connection there could be a disruption in off-campus access to all University web sites, including the LMS during this period. It is recommended that you save your work frequently if you are using the LMS at this time in case your connection is lost.

For further information, see the Service Desk Announcement

ITS announcement: Outage of the University's internet connection

Information Technology Services advise that there is a scheduled service outage on Saturday 13th March 2010 from 6pm to 12am.

LMS users are advised that due to this work on the University’s internet connection there could be a disruption in off-campus access to all University web sites, including the LMS during this period. It is recommended that you save your work frequently if you are using the LMS at this time in case your connection is lost.

For further information, see the Service Desk Announcement

ITS announcement: Outage of the University's internet connection

Information Technology Services advise that there is a scheduled service outage for an upgrade of the University Internet connection.

An outage window has been scheduled for Saturday 27th February from 6pm to 12am.

Users will experience intermittent short delays (approximately 5 minute intervals) in connecting to the internet during this time. Access to and from the University via the internet will be affected, although access within the university network will remain unaffected.

LMS users are advised that due to technical work on the University’s internet connection there could be a disruption in off-campus access to all University web sites, including the LMS on Saturday evening. It is recommended that you save your work frequently if you are using the LMS at this time in case your connection is lost.

For further information, see the Service Desk Announcement

LMS: Login difficulties for some users

Unfortunately some users have received an error message when attempting to login to the LMS following the maintenance work on Friday afternoon.
This has only affected a small fraction of users and we believe this login issue has now been resolved.

If you have any problems or questions, please submit a helpdesk request

LMS: Example subject

A subject has been created to give a basic introduction to the tools and layout of the LMS for those people not yet familiar with it. The subject is guest accessible, so you don’t need to have access to the LMS already in order to view it.
Just click this link, read the instructions on the first page and browse through the subject.

If you have any problems or questions, please submit a helpdesk request

Availability of LMS subjects for semester 1, 2010

To assist students in their preparation for study, all 2010 Semester 1 LMS subjects will automatically be made 'Available' to students at 10am on Friday 19 February 2010.

Note: Any subjects already made 'Available' to students by this date will not be affected by this system change.
In addition all past LMS subject instances will be made 'Unavailable' to students on this date.

For more information about 'Available' and 'Unavailable' LMS subject status please see Setting up your subject

Staff developing LMS subject sites for Semester 1 can refer to the 'LMS framework for subject presence: a guide for subject planning at the University of Melbourne' which outlines core elements for LMS subject sites.

Further information about LMS subject development, staff development and support

LMS: UNAVAILABLE between 23rd January and 29th January 2010

All LMS users are advised that the Learning Management System (LMS) will be unavailable between 8am Saturday 23rd January 2010 and 5pm Friday 29th January 2010 as a consequence of the University’s Data Centre Migration Project.

A temporary 'READ-ONLY' copy of the LMS will be made available from the LATE AFTERNOON of the 23rd until the 29th January 2010 for staff and students to view essential content.

Subject coordinators who are teaching during this period, or know that their students require access due to supplementary assessments should contact Debbie Emerson to discuss any specific requirements for LMS access.

For any queries about the LMS outage please contact the Service Desk

News items pre 2010