Ed (@garay on Twitter) came back from #Educause09 and put up this poll on twtpoll, but even if you don’t have a twitter account, you can participate and review results here:
He asks one question: “What do you sense individual HigherEd schools will od in terms of their LMS system offering(s) two years from now?
What do you think?
Oh, and here’s an interesting Educause09 search looking for Blackboard references from the conference.
Posted in Web/Tech
James Altucher did that thing Nov. 1st for the New York Post where he discourages us from sending our kids to college, based on potential earnings vs debt. Read it here.
Today he's blogging on the Wall Street Journal blogs advising us how to invest that would-be-college money IN education stocks. And lo and behold again we hear Google would do well to buy Blackboard [BBBB]. Another pick Altucher has, is investing in a degree as a diesel mechanic OR investing in the company that offers diesel mechanic training. See how this works? Investing in yourself and your earning potential in: "How to make education pay off"
But how do you invest in your happiness and satisfaction?
Posted in Web/Tech
Michael Feldstein has the word on his blog, e-Literate. Blackboard lost. Blackboard owes Desire2Learn BIG money. And Blackboard plans to try again.
These two entries in the past month will bring you up to speed.
Bb Owes Desire2Learn over Three Million Dollars.
The Cost of the Blackboard Patent Suit (and Who Pays it)
I hope BBBB stock owners put some pressure on Blackboard that this suing as a business strategy is seriously knocking down their profit. Maybe their voices, rather than the ongoing chorus of imploring higher ed clients, will be heeded.
Posted in Web/Tech
Okay, okay, when I blogged back on Sept. 20th about this interesting idea, I knew I was sliding into rumor-mongering. And I was a little uncomfortable posting lest such a label 'stick' to me. I don't want that. Yet the idea of Google buying Blackboard has such delicious overtones to it, I keep looking for others who might think so too. Tanya Carlson over at Motley Fool apparently thinks so…she explains why in her post yesterday, "Are Google and Blackboard an Item?"
Posted in Uncategorized
Only an small percentage of the population knows what I’m talkng about …the cadre of system, application and network administrators who keep the world’s systems running. They know what I’m talking about.
This morning I’m in my running shoes, running tights, big long fleece pullover, with a black ballcap pulled over my head. I came into the office to do the upgrade because I’m addicted to two monitors. Otherwise, I have done them from my living room couch. Of course, in the office I actually have two machines with two monitors. While one is doing the upgrade, the other is playing tunes with my email account open…
I suspect we all have our habits. The habits that preserve us from mistakes even when we’re half asleep and something goes wrong… Do you have ‘em? Same clothes? Same drink? Same location? Certain prep tools?
Service Pack 3 followed by the Wimba 4 jar upgrade isn’t going to go wrong (in progress as I type). I could do this in my sleep. I’ve had two practice runs that were almost boringly uneventful.
I’m probably doing it in my sleep… this cold could be H1N1, you know. And I am writing a blog post in the middle of it.
For clustered installs we are advised in one place to set unit-of-order processing to false, and just after it, to change it to true.
Matt Brady, Blackboard integration Guru extraordinaire, in his October 5th email to the Blackboard-SunGard users list (since this affects real-time event processing from Luminis), sets us straight.
And, as far as I know, the Blackboard Vista_8.0,_Service_Pack_3_Release_Notes.pdf documentation has NOT been changed.
To ensure the LMB operates in an effecient manner the following modifications will need to be made to your configuration files on the ADMIN node.
1) In the config.xml file located at WebCTDomain/config/config.xml you must add the sub-deployment for the InboundQueue to the <jms-interop-module> section.
<sub-deployment>
<name>InboundQueue.ConnectionFactory</name>
<target>WebCTVistaCluster</target>
</sub-deployment>
2) Ensure the unit-of-order processing is set to true in the interop-jms.xml file located at WebCTDomain/config/jms.
Before change:
<default-unit-of-order>false</default-unit-of-order>
After change:
<default-unit-of-order>true</default-unit-of-order>
3) Type “touch REFRESH” in the WebCTDomain directory on each managed node and then restart your cluster.
The 'feature' is called hostname verification. It's on by default. You'll find it under > Environments > Servers > 1 of your servers > SSL tab > bottom of the page under 'Advanced'
Whatever you do, DON'T touch that button. Your environment may never be the same…
I'm sure it renders man-in-the-middle attacks moot, BUT…
It originally bit us because we added Wimba Voice Tools – fully encrypted. Wimba, at the time, about 18 months ago now, was using a wildcard cert in their data center. This 'feature' above does not like notredamevoice.wimba.com referred to as *.wimba.com . Wimba, to their credit, moved Notre Dame's instance and purchased a specific cert.
Today this 'feature' bites again…
This time even after it was changed from "NONE" back to its default as you see above, it has prevented our SP3 from starting up properly after the upgrade. The workaround includes removing the hostname verification param in your config.xml file and disabling schema validation in webct.sh STARTUP_OPTIONS with this parameter
-Dweblogic.configuration.schemaValidationEnabled=false
I may write more about it later after I figure out what else needs to be done to get schema validation to work again…
By the way, has anyone had to edit the config.xml header since Oracle purchased Weblogic? The xsd files would not be hosted in the same place, would they?
Previous header:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<domain xmlns="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/920/domain" xmlns:sec="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90/security" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:wls="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90/security/wls" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90/security http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90/security.xsd http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/920/domain http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/920/domain.xsd http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90/security/wls http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90/security/wls.xsd">
Potential new header?
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<domain xmlns="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/920/domain" xmlns:sec="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90/security" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:wls="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90/security/wls" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90/security http://www.oracle.com/technology/weblogic/90/security.xsd http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/920/domain http://www.oracle.com/technology/weblogic/920/domain.xsd http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90/security/wls http://www.oracle.com/technology/weblogic/90/security/wls.xsd">
Posted in Uncategorized
This is a follow-up to my posting of September 23rd . As information has continued to pour in on the webct-users and webct-admin listserves I follow, this software defect just gets weirder and weirder. The good news is that we’re pooling our observations and that Blackboard is being extremely attentive.
Recapping the ISSUE: Students are saving answers to tests. The fact that they’re doing so is being recorded in server application logs. But NOT in the database so that the answers are displayed AND graded by the application and displayed back to teachers and students.
The SCOPE: It’s being reported far and wide across institutions. From Saskatchewan to Warrnambool, from Sheffield to Boulder, with Tuscaloosa and Des Moines in between. We’re running Bb Vista 8.0.3 and Bb Vista 8.0.2. But, unlike I posted earlier, it’s now been seen in Assessments which do NOT contain paragraph-style answers. It’s been seen on various windows desktops (XP and Vista). I’ve heard of one case (New Mexico State) on Safari 4 (does this mean a Mac? because this may be the only case). It’s been reported with the PC browser Firefox (3.0.13; 3.0.14; 3.5.2; 3.5.3) and using various versions of Java (1.6.0_11; 1.6.0_15; 1.6.0_2). I’ve searched my archives …I can’t find any IE instances … It definitely involves some client-side interaction between browser and other desktop installed items.
RULED OUT: Load balancers. Multi-casting. Respondus Lock-down browser. Student error. Resetting the Assessment.
CURRENT SUSPECTED CAUSE: webserver.logs are demonstrating in these cases there is a single POST saveAllResponse followed by one or more GET saveAllResponse entries. It is suspected that the Firefox browser, under certain conditions (yet unknown) is sending a GET request which Bb Vista software versions 8.02 and 8.03 are misinterpreting.
HOW OFTEN ARE THE ASSESSMENT RESULTS LOST LIKE THIS? From all the webserver logs submitted to Blackboard so far, which contain records of missing assessments AND records of assessment results recorded, they are calculating that the error is occurring 8 out of every 1000 tests taken, for a 99.2% reliability rate (and a nearly 1% error rate). It may seem trivial at first, but when 10,000 tests are taken and 80 students have blank scores… you can see the problem is HUGE.
For now I suppose, we advise students to use IE when taking exams. I should at least cut down on the incident rates if not eliminate them altogether.
——————————————–
I want to give Kevin Lowey of the University of Saskatchewan a huge huge thank you from all of us. He’s really helped define what this issue is and how it’s happening. Kevin is an occasional blogger here. If you too would like to be able to think like Kevin, perhaps reviewing his brain would be helpful. We love you, Kevin!
Yes, it’s a 65 minute KeyNote, but worth every minute of it. Think about your class and your teaching style and this world, these students, he describes. If you’re not ready to invest 65 minutes, then start with one of his youtube.com videos. Perhaps this one: Michael Wesch Web 2.0
Posted in Faculty Resourcing
Here’s how an Instructional Systems Analyst (Alicia Stonesifer) at LaSalle University in Philly celebrates her birthday at work:
The cake? Just another creative endeavor for Melissa Miller, part of the web app team that manages the myLaSalle portal, their Blackboard app, AND the Online Help Desk.
Alica, what’s in the BorgBox?
Is anybody here at Notre Dame getting this? MY birthday is coming up, you know…
Happy Birthday Alicia, from all of us!
Posted in Food and Drink
