MyUNL Blackboard, the university academic portal, is establishing a weekly service and maintenance schedule occurring every Saturday, from 3:00 a.m. until 6:00 a.m. CT, (800 a.m - 11:00 a.m. UTC) starting September 5.
Should the Blackboard system require maintenance, it will occur during this window, and Blackboard will be offline and inaccessible. The system will be closed to activity including Maple TA tests every Saturday from 3:00 a.m. until 6:00 a.m. No major MyUNL Blackboard activities should be planned for these early Saturday morning hours.
"In order to ensure that the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is providing the most up-to-date and stable version of Blackboard possible, Academic Affairs and Information Technology Services are implementing this new, ongoing maintenance schedule for MyUNL Blackboard,” says Heath Tuttle, ITS director, academic technologies.
The scheduled time was determined in part, by examining user activity. ”All of our peer institutions who run Blackboard have established regular maintenance schedules that keep their systems secure and allow them to adapt to requests from their users,” adds Jeremy Van Hof, ITS coordinator, academic technologies.
Prior to establishing a regular schedule, UNL deferred applying necessary updates and changes until semester breaks and the holiday closedown.
“The adoption of this best practice will allow ITS to provide the best possible service and support to our faculty, staff and student Blackboard users while minimizing disruptions to this critical learning tool.” says Lance Perez, associate vice chancellor.
MyUNL Blackboard recently migrated from an on-premise host to Blackboard’s hosting service.
Access MyUNL Blackboard at http://my.unl.edu