Below is a list of news items that are, or have been, posted on the webLearn website.
The latest attempt to remove SSL encryption from WebCT content has been abandoned. This work is now likely to take place during the 2010 Easter break.
The WebCT Vista service will be unavailable for up to two hours* from 7.00am on Sunday, 10 January 2010. This is downtime is for another attempt to remove SSL encryption from WebCT content, which, it is hoped, will fix an ongoing problem when viewing video files in Windows Media Player.
* Original estimate was one hour of downtime but a remote-access problem caused a delay starting the work.
The WebCT Vista service will be unavailable for two periods of up to two hours each, from 3.00am until 5.00am and then from 7.00am until 9.00am, on Saturday, 9th January 2010. This is due to scheduled maintenance, which, it is hoped, will fix the ongoing problem with video files.
The attempt to remove SSL encryption from WebCT content on 16 December 2009 was abandoned. Due to unforeseen problems with some browsers, WebCT was restored to its original configuration. A further attempt to carry out this work will go ahead before the start of the Spring Term if the problems can be resolved in the time available.
The WebCT Vista service will be unavailable for up to two hours, between 7.00am and 9.00am, on Wednesday, 16th December 2009. This is due to scheduled maintenance, which, it is hoped, will fix the ongoing problem with video files.
The WebCT Vista service will be unavailable for approximately two hours, between 12.30am and 2.30am, on Saturday, 21st November 2009. This is due to scheduled maintenance, which, it is hoped, will fix the ongoing problem with video files.
The WebCT Vista service will be unavailable for approximately one hour, between 7.00am and 8.00am, on Monday, 21st September 2009. This is due to scheduled maintenance, which, it is hoped, will fix the ongoing problem with video files.
The WebCT service was upgraded to version 8.0.2 on the morning of Saturday, 12 September 2009. Access to the service was restored at about 9:00am, and this was followed by a period for quality assurance procedures. This upgrade was carried out as part of an effort to improve the quality and stability of the service.
The WebCT Vista service will be upgraded to version 8.0.2 on Saturday, 12th September. WebCT will be unavailable for 12 hours, between midnight and noon on this date, while the upgrade is carried out. It is possible that the period of downtime may be extended if problems are encountered, but the system will be available by 8.00am on Monday, 14th September at the very latest.
The E-Learning Practitioners' Forum 2009 took place at the Birmingham Business School on the 23rd June. The focus for this years' event was to showcase good practice, encourage discussion and inform about general e-learning issues.
The event's abstacts and presentation slides are now available on-line.
Members of staff are invited to attend the university's E-Learning Practitioners' Forum on Tuesday, 23rd June 2009.
The one-day event is intended to showcase good practice, encourage discussion and inform about general e-learning issues. This event is primarily aimed at members of staff who are directly or indirectly engaged in using technology to support student learning; however, we hope that all members of staff will find the event useful.
For further details and the booking form, see www.weblearn.bham.ac.uk/forum2009/
From 5:00pm on Monday, 22 June 2009, after the end of the Summer Term, access to the following WebCT systems will be withdrawn:
If you are a student and you have personal files in your "My Files" space in the above areas of WebCT, you should log in to the old system as soon as possible and download any content from "My Files" that you need to keep.
If you are a member of staff then you should check that your WebCT sections/courses have been migrated successfully to the new system.
Please contact the eLearning Team (elearnteam@lists.bham.ac.uk) if you have any queries.
The WebCT service will be unavailable from 5:00pm on Thursday, 8 January 2009 until 10:00am on Friday, 9 January 2009. During this period, all Central Network and Computing Services will be shutdown. The reason for the overnight shutdown is to allow for essential work to complete and test a new fire alarm system in the main computer centre.
The university has decided to outsource WebCT to improve the service. During the coming months, WebCT content will be migrated to a new environment. While the system is new, the interface will remain largely unchanged. From the end of term, you will be able to access both the existing and new systems. Further details can be found on the webLearn website at http://www.weblearn.bham.ac.uk/news/migration/.
The WebCT Portfolio tool will be withdrawn on 30 November 2008. All required content must be extracted by this date as the tool will NOT be accessible after this time. This product is being replaced by a new e-portfolio system, PebblePad. Further information on this will be circulated shortly.
An investigation by Blackboard, the company behind WebCT, suggests that the Calendar Tool is having a significant impact on WebCT performance. For this reason, it has been decided to remove the "Calendar Week" and "Calendar Day" channels from the My WebCT homepage. Use of the Calendar within Courses/Sections is unaffected by this change and it is still possible to access the Calendar directly from the My WebCT homepage by clicking the Calendar button 
.
Due to serious flooding in the Gisbert Kapp building, the PebblePad service will be unavailable until further notice.
We have received a number of queries regarding access to WebCT during the early hours of the morning UK time. Please note that due to regular system maintenance, the WebCT Vista Service may be unavailable for periods of time between 2:00am and 4:00am UK time. Also, access to WebCT via the my.bham Portal is not available between 5:00am and 5:30am.
Work on the university's external Internet connection will be carried out between 7:00am and 9:00am on Tuesday, 16 September 2008. Between these hours, off-campus network connectivity will be unavailable for a period of approximately 15 minutes; however, users on campus should not be affected. The WebCT service will be available as normal throughout this time wherever network access is available.
The WebCT Vista service will be unavailable on the morning of Wednesday, 3 September 2008. This downtime is required in order to carry out urgent work. It is hoped that the service will be fully restored early on Wednesday afternoon, and by 3.00pm at the latest.
The WebCT Vista service will be unavailable on the morning of Thursday, 12 June 2008. This downtime is required in order to carry out urgent work. We estimate that the service will be fully restored between 11.00am and 12.00pm.
Urgent work is needed to apply an update to the WebCT Vista installation. This work will involve a period of downtime, for approximately one hour, on the morning of Thursday, 29 May 2008. At this point, we cannot be specific about exactly when the downtime will occur, but it is hoped that disruption will be minimised and that the system will be fully restored no later than 12:00pm.
The webLearn website and login facility will be unavailable for a brief period shortly after 7:30 AM on Monday, 10 March 2008. This downtime is required because of maintenance work that is being carried out at the university's Computer Centre. It is anticipated that the login service will be unavailable for up to 15 minutes. Anyone already logged in to WebCT will not be affected.
The WebCT Vista 2007-08, 2006-07 and 2005-06 services were unavailable overnight from 11:00pm on Sunday 28 October to 9:30am on Monday 29 October 2007. Please accept our apologies for this loss of service.
The WebCT Vista service will be unavailable between approximately 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM on Tuesday, 11 September 2007. The period of downtime is required to rectify an issue that has disabled WebCT functionality. There is a risk that WebCT will be affected for a longer period if the work does not go according to plan.
The WebCT Vista service will be unavailable between approximately 10:30 AM and 11:00 AM on Tuesday, 4 September 2007. The short period of downtime is required to rectify an issue that has disabled WebCT functionality. Although the work being done is routine, there is a risk that WebCT will be affected for a few hours after 11:00 AM.
An update was applied to the WebCT Vista service on the morning of Tuesday, 17 July 2007. The work was completed and the service restored at about 8:30am. The service will be monitored throughout the morning.
Blackboard have recently released a fix for an ongoing problem affecting WebCT. Because of the impact that this problem has had on the university’ WebCT service, we are keen to update our installation as soon as possible. We propose to update WebCT between 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM on the morning of Tuesday, 17 July 2007. Although we expect to complete this work well within the specified time, the service will be at risk for the remainder of the morning.
The fifth WebCT Practitioners' Forum took place on the 25th June 2007.
The event, held at the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, was attended by course designers, instructors, administrators and technologists from around the university. The talks focused on the use of WebCT in teaching and learning - showcasing good practice and encouraging discussion.
Copies of the days presentations are now available to download.
The next WebCT Practitioners’ Forum (formerly known as the Designers’ Forum) will be held on Monday 25th June 2007, in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences. The event will commence at 9:30 am with coffee and registration, and will conclude at 2:30pm. Lunch is provided.
This year’s event will include presentations from academic staff who use WebCT along with interactive sessions led by the Staff Development Unit and the eLearning Team.
Places are limited, so if you would like to attend the forum, please complete the booking form at: www.weblearn.bham.ac.uk/forum2007/
The WebCT Vista 2006-07 (Vista) service was unavailable between 4:30 PM on Saturday 12 May 2007 and 1:30 PM on Monday 14 May 2007. Initially, it was thought that the system failed because of a hardware fault; however, we now believe that software was the root cause of the problem. Discussions with the software supplier are ongoing and Information Services will be reviewing its procedures in order to minimise the downtime in the event of a reoccurrence. Please accept our apologies for this loss of service.
The WebCT Vista 2006-07 and 2005-06 services became unavailable on the afternoon of Saturday, 12 May 2007. Information Services is investigating the problem with the aim of restoring the service as soon as possible.
WebCT users have reported problems with the popup window appearing repeatedly when using WebCT. The Browser Check Results popup window warns of a browser configuration error caused by an invalid version of Java.
Some versions of the Java J2SE Runtime Environment have not been validated for use with WebCT. A valid version of Java must be installed on your PC in order for you to access the full range of functionality available in WebCT. For instructions on obtaining a compatible version of Java, see Troubleshooter item 75.
An upgrade of the my.bham Portal is proposed for Wednesday, 18 April 2007. It is estimated that the work will take approximately eight hours and the Portal is likely to be unavailable throughout the day. As a result, users who normally access WebCT via the Portal will need to log in via the webLearn website, which will be unaffected. For most of the downtime, users trying to access the Portal will be redirected to a web page containing a link to the webLearn website.
Staff and students experiencing a variety of difficulties using WebCT have wrongly attributed these problems to malfunctions of the WebCT service. Symptoms include freezing Web browsers and loss of WebCT functionality.
Some recent versions of the Java J2SE Runtime Environment are not compatible with WebCT Vista and it is essential that users configure their browsers accordingly. For instructions on dealing with this problem, see Troubleshooter item 75.
The WebCT Vista 2005-06 (Vista) service was unavailable overnight on Monday, 5 February 2007. Our investigation shows that this downtime was caused by a technical error which led the failure of the WebCT Vista database. Existing processes are being amended to avoid the reoccurrence of this problem.
The WebCT Vista 2006-07 and 2005-06 services were unavailable from approximately 6:00 PM on Monday, 5 February 2007 until 9:20 AM the following morning. The reason for this downtime is being investigated. Please accept our apologies for this loss of service.
Some users have experienced problems using WebCT Vista after updating the J2SE Runtime Environment on their computers. Users have reported trouble resulting in their Web browsers freezing when uploading and adding files to a WebCT section.
It is believed that these problems are the result of an incompatibility between WebCT Vista and recent versions of the J2SE Runtime Environment. Versions 5.0 Update 10 and version 6.0 are known to cause problems on some PCs.
For instructions on dealing with this problem, see Troubleshooter item 75.
The WebCT service will be unavailable from 3:00 AM on Thursday, 28 December 2006 until 5:00 PM on Friday, 29 December 2006. This downtime is required because of maintenance work that is being carried out on the university's storage area network (SAN). The SAN provides storage for a number of systems including WebCT. Further work will be carried out on the SAN after WebCT is restored and, therefore, the service will remain at risk until Tuesday, 2 January 2007.
The WebCT 2000-05 Archive service was restored at 9:15 AM on 12 December 2006 following a prolonged period of downtime. Please note, the archive is not supported as a live service and is only suitable for revision purposes. This archive service will be withdrawn on Friday, 22 June 2007.
The Current 05-06 (Vista) service was unavailable from approximately 7:30 PM on Monday, 11 December 2006 until 3:00 AM the following morning. The reason for this downtime is being investigated. Please accept our apologies for this loss of service.
Staff and students experienced problems using the Turnitin assignment tool on Thursday, 7 December 2006. Turnitin is an external system developed by iParadigms who have now resolved the issue. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused. Please note, this problem did not affect the standard WebCT Assignments tool.
The WebCT 2000-05 Archive became unavailable on Sunday, 26 November 2006 following the expiry of a software licence. Although the archive is no longer supported as a live service, we are aware that it is still being used for revision purposes and we are actively seeking a solution. Please note that this archive service is scheduled to be withdrawn on Friday, 22 June 2007.
The Active Directory Service will be undergoing maintenance from 4:00 PM until 6:00 PM on Friday, 24 November 2006. During this time the service will be running at a reduced level and users may experience difficulties accessing WebCT.
Users were not able to access WebCT via the my.bham Portal or the webLearn website after 1:00am on Sunday, 29 October. This followed the switch from British Summer Time to Greenwich Mean Time. The problem was resolved at approximately 7:15am. Please accept our apologies for this disruption to the service.
The JANET network, which links UK universities and other educational establishments, is undergoing a major upgrade. This upgrade is being carried out in phases and the University of Birmingham is now scheduled to move to the new network between 7:00am and 9:00am on Tuesday, 5 December 2006. Links between the University and the external network are likely to be disrupted during this period and there may be teething problems in the following day or two.
Since just before the start of the 2006 Autumn Term, Information Services has been investigating a number of intermittent issues reported by WebCT users. The symptoms include errors when uploading files, saving changes and carrying out any action that updates the WebCT database. Users also experience difficulty using the Who's Online and Chat tools.
At Birmingham, the WebCT application runs on up to eight servers running in parallel and as each user logs in, they are allocated to a server selected at random. When a fault occurs, it begins on one server and impacts all users connected to that server. Over time, the problem spreads, eventually causing the system to fail.
If you experience any of the symptoms described above, we recommend that you log out of WebCT, close ALL browser windows and start again. We would also be grateful if you would notify the Computing Helpdesk, or the eLearning Team, detailing the username of the person affected and the time when the problem was first noticed. This information will help us to resolve incidents quickly, while we implement long-term solutions.
Users with the McAfee Security Centre installed on their computers have reported problems with certain features in WebCT Vista. In particular, the Content Browser used to select files and the Grade Book do not display correctly.
If you are experiencing either of these problems, you will need to access the McAfee Privacy Service and disable the option to "Block Ads on this computer". The Privacy Service is part of the McAfee Security Centre. For step-by-step instructions, see Troubleshooter item 71.
On 28 February 2006, Blackboard Inc acquired WebCT Inc at a cost of $178 million. The combined company, which trades under the name of Blackboard, has recently renamed its product range. What was WebCT Vista is now the Blackboard Learning System - Vista Enterprise Licence.
At present, most people at the university refer to the VLE simply as WebCT or Vista. As the term WebCT is phased out and Microsoft launch their new Vista operating system, the VLE will need a new name. Blackboard is an obvious name, but this may be an appropriate time to follow the path of other institutions and select a name that is independent of the vendor. The eLearning Team would welcome your suggestions, but in the meantime, we will continue to refer to the VLE as WebCT.
The WebCT 2006-07 service was restarted at 8:30am on Friday, 29 September 2006. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.
The WebCT 2006-07 service will be restarted shortly before 9:00am on Friday, 29 September 2006. This is to consolidate recent changes to the system. WebCT Vista will be unavailable for about ten minutes.
Users accessing WebCT from halls of residence, users with wireless access to the campus network and users accessing the system via certain internet service providers may have experienced problems logging in to WebCT. Other users may have experienced error messages such as the following: your WebCT session has timed out; a system exception has occurred; unable to upload file; unable to delete folder.
The source for some of these problems has now been identified and a temporary solution is being implemented without delay. As part of the process, the WebCT services will be restarted shortly before 9:00am on Friday, 28 September 2006. A long-term solution will be implemented in due course.
Urgent work was carried out on the WebCT Vista service from 4:30pm on Thursday, 21 September 2006. The work was completed and the service restored at 5:20pm. Please accept our apologies for the short notice given and the disruption to the service.
Urgent work on the WebCT Vista service will be carried out from 4:30pm on Thursday, 21 September 2006. The work is expected to take up to two hours. However, if problems are encountered, the service may be unavailable throughout the night.
The WebCT Vista service will be unavailable between 1:00am and 1:00pm on Tuesday, 19 September 2006. During this time the service will be upgraded to remedy a number of current issues including problems with the Calendar tool.
In addition to the upgrade, this period of downtime will be used to carry out preparatory work for the new Vista Portfolio tool and to integrate WebCT with the Turnitin plagiarism detection system. Further details about these services will be posted in the coming days.
Members of staff for whom this work will cause significant difficulties are asked to contact the eLearning Team.
The WebCT Vista service will be upgraded from Version 3 to Version 4 during the week beginning Monday 3rd July 2006. A message will be displayed on the webLearn website throughout the downtime. We anticipate the service may be unavailable for most of the week. Members of staff who have live courses using WebCT during this time are asked to contact the eLearning Team.
This work is fundamental to Information Services' continued commitment to develop the Institutional Virtual Learning Environment (iVLE).
The Current 05-06 (Vista) service was unavailable from approximately 11:00 until 15:00 on Thursday, 15 June 2006 due to a technical fault with the file system. Please accept our apologies for this loss of service.
The Current 05-06 (Vista) service is currently unavailable. We are looking into the problem with the aim of restoring the system as soon as possible.
The problem affecting the Chat and Whiteboard tools has been resolved and the tools are now working normally.
Problems affecting the Chat and Whiteboard tools are currently being investigated. We will endeavour to resolve these issues as soon as possible, but there may be delays due to the bank holiday.
The next WebCT Practitioners' Forum (formerly known as the Designers' Forum), for WebCT Designers and Instructors, will be held on Tuesday, 20 June 2006 in the Avon Room, University Centre. The event will commence at 10:30 with coffee and registration, and conclude at 15:30.
This year's event will not only be attended by colleagues at this university, but also by colleagues from other WebCT institutions. The agenda consists of a variety of presentations ranging from podcasting to portfolios and includes speakers from other institutions.
Essential maintenance on the network has been scheduled to take place on Tuesday, 30 May 2006 between 07:00 and 09:00. Access to WebCT from off campus is likely to be affected during this time.
Version 1.4.2 of the Java Runtime Environment is no longer supported for use with WebCT Vista. If you have this version installed, you should automatically receive a warning when you log in to WebCT. The required version of Sun Java Standard Edition (J2SE JRE 5.0 Update 6) can be downloaded from the following website:
http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp.
A major power outage occurred at about 09:55 on Tuesday, 25 April 2006. This incident affected WebCT, Questionmark Perception and other systems. The Current (Vista) service was restored at about 11:31 and Questionmark Perception at about 11:47. Auto sign-on access to the WebCT Current (Vista) service from the my.bham Portal was restored later, at about 13:00. Please accept our apologies for this interruption to the services.
A fundamental upgrade to Elms Road Data Centre power supply and distribution is being carried out over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. All central IT services, including WebCT, will be unavailable for an extended period.
The WebCT service was brought down shortly after 17:00 on Thursday, 13 April 2006 and the service restored soon after 22:00 on Saturday, 16 April 2006. The service was restored sooner than expected because priority was given to the early restoration of services on which WebCT depends.
Following advice from WebCT, we have upgrade our installation of WebCT Vista, Version 3, to Service Pack 5. This work was carried out on the morning of Wednesday, 12 April 2004 and completed by 09:30. We apologise for the inconvenience caused.
In April 2006, Microsoft released a critical update for Internet Explorer (IE) which alters the way that IE handles embedded content. Issues arising from this update will affect WebCT, as well as many sites across the Internet. The webLearn website contains further details on this Internet Explorer Critical Update.
The Current 05-06 (Vista) service was unavailable, or responding slowly, throughout the weekend beginning Saturday, 8 April 2006. The service was restored at about 09:00 on Monday, 10 April 2006. Although the root cause of the problem is not fully understood, a review of the incident has shown that the system could have been restored far earlier that it was. The procedures for dealing with incidents of this kind have now been amended.
The Oracle database used for the Current 2005-06 (Vista v3) service was upgraded as scheduled between 17:00 on Thursday, 6 April 2006. Please accept our apologies for this interruption to the service.
The Current 2005-06 (Vista v3) service was unavailable between 15:00 and 15:30 on Wednesday 1 February 2006. This downtime was required to carry out a hardware upgrade, one of a number of steps designed to increase the overall capacity of the system and to reduce the risk of further loss of service. Please accept our apologies for this interruption to the service.
The Current 2005-06 (Vista) WebCT service was moved to a new hardware installation on Wednesday, 14 December 2005. There had been a number of incidents attributed to the higher-than-expected load on WebCT and, therefore, a need to move to a more robust setup.
WebCT was unavailable from 01:30 until shortly after 17:00 on Wednesday, 14 December 2005. The longer than expected downtime was, in part, due to the transfer of data which took significantly longer than predicted. The new hardware has led to a reduction in the downtime needed for the nightly backups from 2.5 to less than 0.5 hours. Additional work is planned to further reduce the downtime needed for backups.
The WebCT Vista Administration website, for staff, has also been updated. There is now a Statistics section including a graph of WebCT availability for the previous four days.
Due to the unavoidable URL change associated with this work, WebDAV connections will need to be recreated to incorporate the new URL. For details of how to recreate these links, go to WebDAV.
The third WebCT Designers' Forum took place on Tuesday, 13 December 2005. The event included a range of presentations from staff using WebCT and Derek Jones, a WebCT Product Specialist, gave a demonstration of the features in WebCT Vista Version 4. The next WebCT Designers' Forum is likely to take place just after the end of the Summer term in June 2006.
On Thursday 1 December 05, Current 05-06 (Vista) users experienced slow response times and a temporary loss of the service. The service was affected periodically during the day. Please accept our apologies for this interruption to the service. The investigation into the root cause is ongoing.
On Tuesday 29 November 05, a number of people reported slow responses from WebCT. The incident was resolved and the service restarted at 1535. Please accept our apologies for this interruption to the service.
Following the unscheduled downtime on Tuesday 11 October 05, a 'full set' test of the un-interruptible power supply generator serving the Elms Road Computer Centre will be carried out on the morning of Tuesday 18 October 05, between 0630 and 0900. Although the system has been tested offline, there is a risk of disruption to the major IT services, including WebCT, which are based at the Computer Centre. Special measures are being taken to deal with any problems that may occur.
On the morning of Tuesday 11 October 05, there was a loss of power at the Elms Road Computer Centre which was caused by a faulty capacitor. Many systems were affected, including WebCT. The webLearn website was eventually restored at about 0915. Please accept our apologies for this loss of service.
Users logging in to the Current 2005-06 (Vista v3) service early on Tuesday 20 September 05 were presented with the following message: There is some internal problem. Contact your Server Administrator. This was caused by the reconfiguration of an authentication system used by WebCT Vista. The problem was resolved and the service restored at about 0900. Please accept our apologies for this loss of service.
The WebCT Archive 2000-04 (CE v4.1) service was unavailable for a short time on the morning of Tuesday 16 August. Please accept our apologies for this loss of service.
A power outage at the Elms Road Computer Centre resulted in the loss of the WebCT Vista service between 1055 and 1220 on Wednesday 20 July 2005. Please accept our apologies for this loss of service.
The new webLearn website was launched on 7 July 2005. The updated website features two sections, one for students and the other for staff. This development will allow the eLearning Team to provide more focused information to the two main stakeholders. If you have any comments on the revised website, please email the eLearning Team.
Essential maintenance work will be carried out on the electrical substation that supplies power to the Main Library from the 0800 to 1600 on Sunday 10th July 05. During this time the WebCT Vista Administration interface, used by staff, will be unavailable.
Essential work on the network infrastructure is scheduled between 06:00 and 09:00 on Tuesday 5 July 2005. During this time, WebCT will remain available on campus although Internet connectivity will be affected.
The second WebCT Designers' Forum took place on 21 June 2005. About 85 staff attended the event, which took place in the Avon Room, University Centre. The next WebCT Designers' Forum is likely to take place just after the end of the Autumn term in December 2005.
WebCT Campus Edition is being phased out over the summer to be replaced with WebCT Vista. Details of the procedure for staff can be found on the Rollover Process page on this website.
The first WebCT Designers' Forum took place on 14 December 2004. The event was well attended and it is hoped that this will become a regular event.
