The migration of our VLE to Blackboard SaaS (Software as a Service) is now complete. You can can log in at www.bb.reading.ac.uk and start using the system.
We’ve talked about the advantages of Saas in an earlier post on this blog, and also described some of the changes that would be coming. This blog post provides an update with further information – particularly around the new way of logging in.
Logging in to Blackboard
The way you sign in to Blackboard has been brought in line with other University systems. You now sign on in exactly the same way as you do to access Teams and other Microsoft 365 systems.
Please see Logging in on our Staff help site for further details.
Guidance for students can be found on the Student help site.
Turnitin
Our Blackboard integration with Turnitin has been updated. You should not notice any difference in how you access and mark work, but the upgrade introduces a number of enhancements and bug fixes.
Blackboard Annotate
Next week will see the introduction of a new – and much improved – interface for marking Blackboard assignments. For details, please see our guide: Blackboard Annotate.
This will provide a better interface when marking Group assignments, and should also benefit colleagues in subjects such as Maths, Economics and the Sciences who need to mark handwritten work online.
Existing Blackboard assignments – and any feedback previously left on them – will be migrated to the new interface during week beginning 10 August. The migration may take all week to complete on all assignments.
If you are providing feedback on work submitted to a Blackboard assignment during week beginning 10th August before it has migrated to Bb Annotate we suggest you Save regularly.
Tools which are no longer supported
Blackboard Drive
Blackboard removed support for Drive in December, and it does not work with SaaS. Very few people have been using Drive, so this is unlikely to cause any issues.
SignUp Lists
The third party SignUp List tool was written for a much earlier version of Blackboard and has not been updated by its developers. The tool does not work with SaaS.
Blackboard Self-Enrol Groups offer similar functionality and may well meet your needs.
Problems? Queries?
As ever, if you have any queries, or experience issues when using Blackboard, please contact us:
- via the Self Service Portal (once logged in, search for ‘blackboard’)
- by email to dts@reading.ac.uk
- via Ask a Question on the Blackboard help site for staff
A member of the TEL team will get back to you as soon as possible.