Blackboard Report

March 20, 2020

From:  Arthur Downing, Vice President for Information Services and Dean of the Library

For approximately 30 minutes yesterday afternoon Blackboard users at Baruch and other CUNY schools could not access content in their courses and instructors could not upload content. As soon as it occurred CUNY CIS contacted Blackboard and determined that the very high use of Blackboard we experienced yesterday prevented the dynamic allocation of additional storage from operating as it should have. They corrected the problem and arranged for Blackboard to increase monitoring and allocate additional storage as needed.

CUNY CIS is finalizing a support services agreement with Blackboard that will provide after-hours call center support services for faculty who have questions regarding how to utilize Blackboard Learn and Collaborate. These services will be provided via Blackboard’s Help Desk and will operate outside of CUNY’s Service Desk hours of 8am to 8pm. We should be able to announce the availability of this support very soon.

The unprecedented volume of use of systems and networks across the country at this time is requiring adjustments day-by-day to support the demand. At times there may be periodic interruptions when we discover limits that were based on earlier assumptions of use. When Baruch College users experience any interruption of service, please check the BCTC home page for announcements and status reports: https://www.baruch.cuny.edu/bctc/

Arthur Downing

Vice President for Information Services and Dean of the Library