An interim report on some issues of our implementation of Bb6:
We are an Enterprise (Learning System only) campus on Linux servers, with
nearly 700 courses on Bb and roughly 6,000 active student users. The data
migration was completed in about 4 hours, and as yet has not shown any
significant errors in the data integrity or accuracy.
The main issues of functionality will be addressed (tonight, I hope) by an
upgrade to release 6.0.6 - there were some disconcerting bugs in 6.0.5 that
the release notes imply will be fixed (including one in the gradebook), so
upgrading to 6.0.6 is very much recommended. Tomorrow will tell whether they
really have been fixed, though our test server suggests they have.
We started by installing 6 on a test server and progressively did a test
data migration, had some users view and test their courses, and check out as
much of the functionality as we could. Inevitably there were functions that
we hadn't tested and a few of these came to light after the live server was
upgraded. The local scripts we run for enrolling students from our SMS also
had to be thoroughly tested, and generally posed few problems (except when
the server technician changed the Oracle root password and didn't tell
anyone !@$#)
One burning issue is that we still have an ancient version of Netscape
(4.08) on our network (don't ask why our IT Services can't upgrade it - I've
tried) - this can't support some of the pop-up course map windows, and
Netscape crashes. Recent browser versions are fine, but Bb6 obviously
requires later versions of Java.
Still appear to be some ongoing issues with loading the Virtual Classroom
(now called Collaboration, which it isn't really, but that's another issue),
especially on a Mac, but also some generic Windows problems.
Other people's experiences or reports would be greatly appreciated.
Possibly more later as we get the version bedded in.
Regards
Mark Northover
> A few weeks ago I asked the list for comments regarding the move from
> v5 to v6. Many thanks to those that replied.
>
> Following a recent meeting I have been actioned to try and ascertain
> the following and so would appreciate any advice you have :
>
> 1) have any institutions migrated since the start of December, were
> there any problems and if so what?
>
> 2) I've heard that where there are problems that these are concerned
> mainly with assessment information - is this the case?
>
> 3) Does anyone have any specific comments about the new assessment
> engine?
>
> 4) Ditto the new Virtual Classroom.
>
> Gary
> ----------------------
> Gary Michael Clay
> Learning Development Manager
> Learning Development
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
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