Blackboard Offline 12-6 a.m., Sat., 1/27

To upgrade Blackboard’s core file system that cannot wait until Spring Break or Summer, Blackboard engineers will service UMBC’s cloud system on Saturday, January 27, from 12:01 a.m. to approximately 6 a.m. DoIT realizes this is the weekend before Spring 2018 classes start on Monday, January 29, but the necessary upgrade will migrate files and associated content to a more secure, encrypted system. As a result, we also expect to see increased performance and responsiveness of our Blackboard site. During this six-hour period, Blackboard will be offline. We simply could not find another downtime window of this length once the Spring semester starts.

In preparation for this downtime:

• Winter 2018 Instructors: We know grades are due Wed., 1/31. If you need access to your gradebook during the downtime, please review this FAQ for information on downloading a copy of the Blackboard Grade Center to Excel.

After Blackboard is back online, please clear your Internet browser cache and cookies before logging in using these step-by-step instructions.

The UMBC Blackboard team identified the optimal time period to reduce impact on our users. If our Blackboard site is down longer than expected due to unforeseen circumstances, updates will be posted to this news article. We appreciate your patience as we continue to work with Blackboard to improve our systems.

As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options:

• Check our extensive FAQ collection

• New Features | Known Issues | Updates & Fixes

• Open a ticket via RT

• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups

• Request a consult with instructional technology staff