UPDATE: eClass Outage Cancelled

The outage previously scheduled for Tuesday August 28th, 2012 from 6PM until Wednesday August 29th, 2012 at 6AM has been cancelled.

We will be making the server hosting environment changes at a later date.

If you have any questions, please contact ctl@ualberta.ca.

Thank you for your patience.

Regards,
CTL Technology Services

eClass Outage Saturday August 18, 2012 - Sunday August 19, 2012

Dear eClass Users,

We would like to inform you that the eClass (Moodle and Blackboard Vista) systems will be offline this coming Saturday August 18, 2012 from 10PM until Sunday August 19th, 2012 at 12 Noon. We will be using this outage to make important changes to the server hosting environment.

Please do not schedule any activities for the LMS during this period. If you have any questions, please contact ctl@ualberta.ca.

Thank you for your patience.

Regards,
CTL Technology Services

Blackboard Vista (WebCT) Decommissioning

The transition to eClass powered by Moodle is now in the final stage - our license to Blackboard Vista (formerly WebCT) is expiring soon and all new courses are being run on eClass Moodle. On August 31, 2012, eClass Vista will be shutting down and all public access to the system will be removed.

All new courses on eClass must now be created on eClass Moodle. Courses can be requested online using the eClass Course Creation System

All course content from Blackboard Vista will be archived and converted to Moodle, which will be available in future terms as archived content. By mid-August, instructors will be able to access this content to preview it and request it during the Moodle course creation process. We recommend that instructors do not make any new content edits on Vista after August 1st as these changes will not be archived.

Please note that all static content will be archived, but student data (discussion posts, assignment/quiz submissions, Vista email messages etc) can not be migrated to Moodle.

We encourage all instructors who will be teaching a course in the next year to request your course as soon as possible so that your content can be reviewed while eClass Blackboard is still available. We also recommend that all users who are new to Moodle attend our upcoming training sessions. The training schedule for the next few months can be found here.

If you have any questions about the final stage of our transition to eClass Moodle, please contact us at ctl@ualberta.ca

CTL Tech Services

eClass Upgrade on July 2nd, 6 AM - Noon

We would like to inform you that the eClass (Moodle and Blackboard Vista) systems will be offline on Monday July 2nd, 2012 (Canada Day Holiday) from 6:00 AM to noon. We will be using this brief outage to upgrade Moodle to the newer version (2.2.3) and to add/improve a few of our Moodle plug-ins. The following features/improvements will be included with this upgrade:

Regards,
CTL Technology Services

Brief eClass Maintenance Outage on Thursday May 17th 2012

Dear eClass users,

We would like to inform you that the eClass (Moodle and Blackboard Vista) systems will be offline for about 10 minutes at 5:00 AM on Thursday, May 17th 2012. We will be using this brief outage to fix an urgent issue.

If you have any questions, please contact ctl@ualberta.ca. Thank you for your patience.

Regards,

CTL Technology Services

RESOLVED: Latest Safari Update Has problems with eClass Login

The latest update of Safari, version 5.1.4 released on March 12, 2012 causes some users to experience login issues when accessing eClass. The browser will get stuck in an infinite loop where it switches back and forth between the portal page and the weblogin page.

UPDATE: CTL Tech services team implemented a fix on our portal page to make it functional with the latest version of Safari.

Users can safely update their Safari to the latest version (5.1.5) without experiencing any further eClass login issues.

If you have any questions, please contact ctl@ualberta.ca.

CTL Tech Services

eClass Outage Schedule 2012

To ensure adequate maintenance of the eClass and eClass Live! services, we are scheduling a monthly maintenance outage on the last Sunday of each month. During each outage we will perform routine maintenance, address any outstanding problems, and add or update plugins as required. The length of each outage will be determined by the complexity of the changes required.

eClass and eClass Live! may be unavailable during the time slots listed below so plan accordingly.

eClass Outage Notification Sunday April 1st 2012

Dear eClass users,

We would like to inform you that the eClass (Moodle and Blackboard Vista) systems will be offline this coming Sunday April 1st, 2012 from 8:30 AM to 10:30 AM. We understand that this date might cause some confusion, but please rest assured that this is not a joke. We will be using this brief outage to upgrade a number of Moodle plug-ins. Some of these changes include:

- Enhancements to the eClass course creation and enrollment plug-in

- Improvements to the current U of A Moodle theme

- Improvements to the eClass Live (Elluminate) plug-in

Please do not schedule any teaching or learning tasks during this period. If you have any questions, please contact ctl@ualberta.ca. Thank you for your patience.

Regards,

CTL Technology Services

eClass (Moodle and Vista) Outage February 23, 2012

We would like to inform you that the eClass (Moodle and Blackboard Vista) systems will be offline Thursday February 23rd, 2012 from 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM. We will be using this brief outage during Reading Week to upgrade a number of Moodle plugins and make some system administration changes. Some of these changes include:

- Improvements to the eClass Live (Elluminate) plugin

- Integrations for Respondus and Respondus Lockdown browser

- Enhancements to the theme

- Minor changes to system roles

Please do not schedule any teaching or learning tasks during this period. If you have any questions, please contact ctl@ualberta.ca. Thank you for your patience.

CTL Technology Services

Electronic Grade Submission

The University is taking its first steps to move from a paper-based final grade entry process to a system-based final grade entry process by implementing an electronic method for instructors, departments and faculties to enter, submit and approve final grade information for students. This will replace the manual process that is currently in place.

The new functionality will allow instructors to either download a class grade roster spreadsheet from Beartracks to input grades, download an appropriate gradebook spreadsheet from eClass (Moodle), or enter grades directly. Though there will not be a one-click solution to upload grades directly from eClass (Moodle) at this time, this simpler and more transparent process will increase efficiencies and conserve resources across campus.

All instructors, departments and faculties are expected to start using this automated process starting during the Winter 2012 term. An overview of the new grades process is available at  http://www.ais.ualberta.ca/ (see Current AIS Projects - Grades Presentation). If you have any questions regarding this project, please contact Barry Scott (AIS Project Manager) at barry.scott(at)ualberta.ca  or 492-2815.