I work for Blackboard supporting the Systems Administrators that run the system.
Ask me anything
>>46975118
i don't have a question
i just fucking hate you
>>46975118
how do you detect url manipulation?
How much data does Blackboard collect about clients?
Why is Blackboard a piece of shit
Do you guys fuck everything up on purpose so you have job security, or do you do it because you are incompetent?
Do you work at the D.C building? I walk past it when i go downtown.
>>46975173
Also this my school is dropping blackboard next year not enough of my teachers use it and the tools it uses are awful.
>>46975118
I had to use this shit for physics 1 and 2. It is literally the worst fucking way to host an online class.
Why did you guys create a software called "blackboard" that doesn't actually support graphics tablets?
>>46975118
Why is it that we cant just type a similar answer into the text fields and get a fucking correct answer. So many times I have added a space and ended getting points taken off even if what I entered was objectively correct.
>>46975208
>>46975173
my school (major state university) is dropping blackboard as well
>>46975160
I understand
>>46975162
I've never seen a URL manipulation bug outside of Angel (Blackboard is heavily based off WebCT and Angel)
>>46975171
I work on Self Hosted Systems. The only information we recieve are basic URLs for cloud connections and updates. Im not sure on the systems we host for Universities
>>46975173
Because it's never been built from the ground up. It was built by taking from Angel and WebCTand contains so much legacy code bugs pop up on a regular basis. Out latest release, October 2014, actually included 0 enhancements and was entirely bug fixes.
>>46975174
It would take too much time from bug fixing to build a new system from the ground up.
>>46975118
Why is it so inferior to Canvas?
>>46975208
I actually work from home most days but my office is out of NY.
>>46975213
Because it's general purpose. We have a robust equation system but this isnt matlab
>>46975224
Instructors decide the answers and Blackboard can only match what they input. Things like that only give a grade estimate upon completion. Instructors have to manually review and accept all tests that contain more than rue/false and multiple choice questions.
>>46975248
It is so much more robust in so many ways i wont even get into it.
>>46975266
Enlighten me? I dreaded using Blackboard throughout high school and even a community college class this past summer. It just was so clunky and hard to manage. My college switched to Canvas 2 years or so ago and it just seems to work far better, its quicker, easier to manage.
Maybe my experience was with an older set of Blackboard?
I am legitimately asking, I don't truly have a stake in the game here, I use whatever my school pays for.
>>46975266
But blackboard collaborate seems like it was designed specifically to be an online whiteboarding software. But without support for a graphics tablet, it's virtually useless for that. It doesn't even do a good job of smoothing out markings, as far as I can tell it doesn't do it at all.
My physics 1 instructor used to lecture with a wacom tablet, and it still looked like he was writing with his mouse.
It would be a really useful piece of software if not for that. It just seems like you guys didn't even try to fill what is arguably the most important bulletpoint.
>>46975118
Are you mad that Canvas is BTFO'ing blackboard?
>>46975118
Why is it such a pile of burning shit?
>>46975118
When do you plan on modernizing Blackboard to use HTML5?
>>46975303
Feature requests are added regularly. We care more about the administrators interactions with the system and support that we cater to their every whim. We frequently support people for out of contract issues just so they love us.
We also have Building Blocks. A feature where anyone can build a feature into the systems with a generalized API. I cant go into specifics because I am not a product developer but we've demoed the system and I loved Blackboard way more.
>>46975312
I actually work for Blackboard Learn. We have 7 products with a variety of usage. We typically only use collaborate to screencast client systems to support whatever is wrong with the server.
>>46975320
Ill be the first to admit the system is really broken, but there is so much invested in what we currently have there is a slim chance of it changing. We have started to offer Blackboard Systems that we almost wholly manage and run off AWS for cheap rates that most can support.
>>46975331
See ^
>>46975342
It would require a massive overhaul of the system that i doubt it will happen anytime soon. We hear the request frequently so im sure the developers are trying to implement it but it is a tall order for something so buggy. We actually just moved to iFrames in the April 2014 release.
Tell me of an exploit where I can get all correct answers
>>46975320
Also to add to this. People pay upwards or 3 million dollars because of the other products we have, the support we provide, and because we're a big kids LMS (Learning Management System). There is a reason most major schools use us over canvas or even home brewed systems. We are also international and command an even larger percentage on online learning tools than in America.
>>46975447
Not gonna happen. Ive actually tinkered around for bug testing but outside of backend access it would be extremely difficult.
>>46975118
What qualifications and experience do I need to be either your boss or someone ranked one higher than you?
>>46975118
Fuck you.
>>46975118
OSU is switching to canvas from blackboard. Why do you think this is? Apparently they were not happy with blackboard. As a member of the LUG here, is it because blackboard sucks?
http://blackboard-transition.oregonstate.edu/
>>46975589
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/lifeatosu/2014/osu-transitions-from-blackboard-to-canvas/
>>46975540
I came in with no experience but the training was fairly comprehensive. We also had a long nesting period where we would sit with other agents an learn everything from them. In about 2 months i learned enough SQL to go around, how to understand Java code (Blackboard is Java based, the installer is a .jar) HTML and CSS, and among other things Windows Server, MSSQL, Oracle and RHEL management and all the tools associated with Blackboard.
So i imagine you'd need all that knowledge upfront on top of advanced Java and SQL experience, certifications to match, and management experience. My direct managers actually dont deal with support at all, just personnel management. We have people who are our equals, called Subject Matter Experts, who are the advanced users and help us if we need assistance. Outside of them you go to Level 2, their managers who actually have technical knowledge, and Tier 3 which is Product Development
>>46975589
I have personally dealt with them. They never had many tickets and the system seemed fine so i imagine it was a money issue. It looks like they still use our Blackboard Mobile and Connect services.
>>46975640
Yeah blackboard is still in using during the transition, see the second post I made here: >>46975620
Looks like it came down to focus groups and user interaction, which includes mobile interaction. I don't use a smartphone myself, especially not for class related material, but I can see how blackboard wouldn't work so great on a phone.
Had to use it in college. Awful, awful AWFUL. I know in my final semester I was forced to take an online class, and the teacher thought she would be hot shit by making the exam a true/false test hosted through blackboard.
Guess what crashed an hour before the exam. And then, to make matters worse, our shitty email system fucked up and wouldn't send emails for anyone either. Of course, when the teacher went to check the next day the issue was fixed, and being a dumb bitch she thought everyone forgot about it and failed everyone. Suffice to say there was one hell of a yelling match.
>>46975701
It's actually it's own app. Its not nearly as robust as the web browser version and only allows 2 types of tests to be used, and the interface is actually pretty shitty.
>>46975702
Yeah i know. We have so many issues from Locking threads, SQL queries that are so fucked up they pull more data than the system can handle, and i've even seen / by 0 crashed before. It's because of the legacy code and the fact that the generalized system is so customized by each client the inevitable always happens.
>>46975640
>Blackboard is Java based
It all makes sense now.
Post some of the SQL queries bæ :^)
Do consider Desire2Learn a serious competitor?
>>46975805
What did you think it would be written in? ffs, honestly I'm curious what you think it should be written in.
>>46975905
algol.
>>46975905
node.js obviously
I've never had an issue with blackboard despite my University using it pretty heavily. There have been some times where it's been down, but as long as you're not a dumbass who waits until the last minute to submit assignments small downtimes aren't really that big of an issue.
I do know when looking at recently graded it fucks up if the total possible points isn't a whole number.
>>46975905
Haskell, Lisp, or C.
Is there any possibility of better support for terminal based browsers? Lynx really does not get along with BBlearn, and neither have any other similar web browsers.
>>46975960
Are you fucking with me?
One of my instructors said they can detect if we have other windows or tabs open when we take an exam. Is that BS?
>>46975965
No. Seriously, I have tried on lynx and it was terrible.
>>46975118
Why can't my older teachers learn to use your shitty interface? Is it their fault or yours? Completely serious, electronics teachers who have to use CAD and the like all day every day can't figure out how to keep classes updated, so is it you or them?
The only thing that properly bothers me is scrolling the notifications section.
Not possible on a touchscreen and scrolls >1 page height at a time on a thinkpad.
Is this getting fixed any time soon?
>>46975971
complete bs
>>46975932
it was an awfu experience, had to clear my cookies constantly cause my session would get perma-fucked, must be huge amounts of state flying around with how broken navigation is
>>46975118
thoughts on Moodle?
>>46975118
Why does it crash from 11pm to 1am?
Do you enjoy the product?
If not, what does it feel like working on something you don't like?
What are your thoughts on Moodle?
>>46975118
Why does Blackboard suck so much?
I've never actually used blackboard, but the community college in my town uses it and I've heard so many bad things about it.
Thoughts on Instructure's Canvas and Moodle? My school used to use Moodle but nearly every teacher has switched to Canvas now (just a couple holdouts now).
>>46976170
>>46976489
Whoops. Guess I should look at the thread before posting.
I work as a support dev for a moodle partner.
How do you feel about your competitors?
>>46975118
Why is the site down, I have homework due.
>>46975118
Your fucking text input boxes suck as man fix them. When the teacher gets them the formatting is changed and completely wrong. Several other students and I have sent complaints you niggers haven't responded though.
>>46975118
Why don't you guys fix the fucking virtual classroom java applet? Your tech support literally says to downgrade to java 7. You might as well just say "fuck off we don't care"
>>46976494
in my experience its actually really useful and it almost never goes down. I've had java applets not work though (shit in the "tools" section of every class that no teachers use anyway). But TONS of people like to say that it's shit and that it goes down all the time, just so that they can tell their professors that they missed the 11:59 deadline to turn in their projects because BLACKBOARD WENT DOWN AGAIN GOD FUCKING DAMMIT
>>46976628
shhhhhhh!shut up!
stop making me change my password jerk
>>46975208
My school uses Blackboard Collaborate (BBC) but its for optional live classes. The real schoolwork is on Moodle, which is surprisingly OK if you factor out the quizzes with open-ended responses that don't tell you how to format your answer.
why is it an unintuitive bloated piece of shit
Still waiting to here about lynx....
If I ask you let's say... If the server glitches.. Would there be any way to recover state data?
>>46975118
a few years ago I had just gotten a new laptop (with windows 8) and I was using IE 10 and blackboard could.not.support.that. my school said 'lol idk use different browser'. blackboard is by a wide margin the worst fucking thing ever. I wont be a faggot blame you completely but teachers decide to put a schedule on either: the 'syllabus', under 'content', under 'calender', or in the fuckin 'course email' tab. it's so fucking convoluted it doesn't even begin to make sense
>mfw trying to find anything
Is there anyway way for a teacher to detect me cheating (copying questions and then control-f my copy on google) in exams or a final exam? Is there any possibility at all? Fuck polisci with this dumb liberal bitch of a teacher. I don't want to read about Mexican field works and answer questions about dindus not doin nuffen
>>46978185
(I am not OP)
I am pretty certain that BBlearn employs a tool that checks input texts against texts on the internet, such that warnings will pop up if your answers are copypasted from Wikipedia, or things of that nature.
>>46978185
for literally years ive had teachers (not all but some) be super srs about not cheating when THEY THEMSELVES COPY AND PASTED QUESTIONS FROM THE INTERNET. don't be retarded and just copy and paste from the test. open a different browser and type the question into google. 9/10 the answer will come up on a flashcard website.
>>46978218
Yeah sorry that's what I meant, the teacher has two quizzes a week and a ton of stupid writing assignments. I copy and google questions from the quizes to answer them. I was hoping to do the same in the final exam, but I'll start writing them on another browser. I just hope she does not see the control-c commands I use to take the question
>>46978256
Well like most things in life, if you get caught cheating it's your own fuckin fault. Nowadays I have so many online classes require me to go in-person to a "testing center" but the ones that don't, I absolutely cheat on because irrelevant classes are a huge waste of money. I've always used a different browser just in case even though I know that if the teacher somehow fuckin knew I was doing other things on my computer, the only way that would be possible is if they were hax0r-ing my computer and it would be super illegal. and that's simply not going to happen because nobody cares that much
>>46975118
Could you fire the entire mobile team?
>>46975971
Sorry for the absence. They can track if you've opened another window but they have to manually run an activity report. Also if you are using respondus
>>46976003
Blackboard was never designed for a mobile browser. Use the app
>>46976170
Same as my thoughts on canvas. Ive demoed it but i liked Blackboard more
>>46976452
My biggest issues are the same as everyone else's. It has lots of bugs, and performance issues are fairly common.
>>46978117
We released services packs 4 times a year around then. The fact it wasn't supported was likely because the admins were too lazy to actually upgrade to the latest version.
>>46978400
The mobile team minus devs are in the same office as me. They are the most overworked of us all and completely understaffed though we typically are too because of the long training period. There is a lot of turnaround as they do not pay us nearly as much as we should get for our jobs so we tend to move on in a couple years as a Blackboard Admin for a school making 60k a year at minimum.
>>46978644
>mobile browser
Try any laptop with a capacitive touch screen in tablet mode.
Or any Windows tablet.
Also the mobile app doesn't do group stuff.
>>46978689
It wasn't designed for that either. We've never even tried to demo it on a touchscreen. Are your fingers too broken to use a scroll wheel but just functional enough for the touch screen?
If you are handicap we have full support of the JAWS reading assistance program. You can find more info below:
http://www.freedomscientific.com/Products/Blindness/JAWS
>>46978707
Thinkpad scroll wheel scrolls more than a page of content at once. Normal scroll wheel scrolls exactly one page at a time.
Dragging the thing on the side is about the best it gets, and that is hard to do on a laptop.
Do you watch anime and who's your waifu ?
>>46978753
Yes and pic related
>>46978772
Awesome.
May great luck come to you today anon.
>>46975118
did you know that your site is shit and i can access other discussion boards by manipulating the url?
What the fuck is this shit? We use piazza at my school.
>>46978801
Must be an old and unpatched version. We only patch 3 versions behind the latest and up until last year we had 4 service packs coming out every year.
>>46978824
latest version... it's only certain boards but i'm not going to give you the pleasure of telling you the pattern i found
>>46978834
At least give me the version number. When logged in go to the bottom of the page and expand the installation details section.
>>46978844
there's nothing at the bottom though...
>>46978855
That sucks, must be a custom theme. Honestly i dont care i just wanted the luxury of proving it was an older version.
>>46978871
probably themed.
i looked in the help section and shit but didn't see any version numbers for blackboard.
>>46978871
also it's due to the url not being obfusciated enough from the end user, from what it looks like your framework is assigning forums in order and using a count of total forums for urls.
>>46978883
There's a website, behind.blackboard.com for admins. That's where the real technical documentation goes though we do publicly document our Database Schema on help.blackboard.com
>>46978898
If you look into the schema every single item is assigned a unique value based on when it was created. This is known as the PK1 value. I'm willing to bet you can access discussions within the courses you are enrolled in but not external courses as the URL is pointing to that value.
>>46975960
people will say i'm troling, but seconding this request. I'm often not running X, and it's a pain to start it up just to view my assignment on blackboard or whatever
>>46978912
did the url structure change within the past week/2 weeks?
>>46978931
I'd suggest submitting an Enhancement Request via the URL below. Be sure to select the Blackboard Learn product.
http://www.blackboard.com/Contact-Us/Suggest-Product-Enhancements.aspx
>>46978944
No. Our last release was October 2014, and our next release isn't planned until April 2015, normally in the last week. They could be using some sort of ass backwards DNS routing or load balancer setup.
