Summer 2023 Course Requests Open in SPIRE
Summer 2023 course requests are now available in SPIRE, so you can get an early start on your course building.
If you have not done so already, you can still request your Spring Blackboard courses in SPIRE as well. Don’t forget that each semester you will need to request Blackboard for the courses you are teaching.
For detailed instructions, see:
Blackboard Tip of the Month: Use the Retention Center to check on student performance
Did you know you can easily check on students progress in your course using the Retention Center in Blackboard? This can be useful as we approach Spring Break to identify student behavior patterns and offer assistance before it’s too late for a student to succeed in your course. Blackboard also created a short video overview of the Retention Center and its features.
Planned downtimes
There are no planned downtimes for Blackboard in March 2023.
You can check the status of Blackboard, Zoom, and other supported teaching technologies on the IT Services Status for Remote Teaching and Learning page.
CourseArc Planned Downtime, Saturday March 4 – Saturday, March 4th at 4:00 am EST, there will be scheduled downtime for approximately 4 hours. During this maintenance window, the CourseArc platform will be inaccessible and email notifications will be paused. While maintenance is underway, you can check the maintenance status on our status page. All platform operations will resume immediately after the maintenance window.
Blackboard help and resources for instructors
To learn more about Blackboard or to get help, you can:
- Review our Blackboard Support Articles.
- Contact the Instructional Media Lab (instruct@umass.edu) with a question, or to set up a time for a one-on-one consultation.
- Join our Instructor Support Zoom room Monday-Friday between 10am and 3pm to meet with a staff member. Please note that wait times depend on the volume of requests.
- Contact the 24/7 Blackboard Helpdesk. The helpdesk can also assist students directly.