Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Tag: Blackboard CE/Vista

  • CE / Vista Undocumented Workspaces

    On the WebCT Users email list (hosted by Blackboard) there is a discussion about a mysterious directory called unmarshall which suddenly appeared. We found it under similar circumstances as others by investigating why a node consumed so much disk space. Failed command-line restores end up in this unmarshall directory. Unmarshalling in Java jargon means: converting…

  • CE/Vista and Banner Integration

    This is the second time I have worked on making Vista integration work with Banner. The first was 2005 in Vista 3.0.3 at Valdosta State. The production here at GeorgiaVIEW was set up by Harold, Jill, and Amy years ago and integrated into the install scripts or part of the cloned databases. So now I…

  • Off the Twitter Timeline: Icons

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    I laughed at reading this one. Dear Blackboard: If you include icons in your interface, they should f’ing well be clickable. Everyone but you knows this. jazzmodeus I thought this might refer to the new item icons. Jason works for Emory (doing instructional design) and taking classes at Florida State. Both use Academic Suite. So…

  • Off the Twitter Timeline: Clunky WebCT

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    Summize provides a great way to troll for what people are saying. Beyond just searching for a term, it provides RSS feeds for terms. I follow several, such Blackboard and WebCT. The WebCT one netted me the following tweet: annoyed with how clunky webct can be at times – it had to have been designed…

  • IMS Data Going to Wrong Place

    I should know better than to trust documentation over my own intuition. Or to change based on what others tell me. I followed: Log in to Vista Enterprise as a Server Administrator or Institution Administrator. NOTE: To set glcid, you must log in as a Server Administrator. From the Administration tab, click the Utilities tab.…

  • IMS Import Error When Node Is Down

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    This is what I got when a node was down while I attempted to do an IMS import in Blackboard CE/Vista. Failed to upload files, exiting. Cause could include invalid permission on file/directory, invalid file/directory or repository related problems The keywords permission, file, and directory in this would have sent me anywhere but to the…

  • We Need a 4th Vista DBA / Technical Support

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    Work for OIIT! Become our 4th DBA / technical support person for our team. Located in Athens, GA (college town, UGA football) $, benefits, generous leave, rare snow we love open source PDF of GeorgiaVIEW DBA position Check out the PDF (right) for more information. Sorry for the convoluted route to the application… Click this…

  • Less Is More

    Mashable has an interesting article about why Twitter persists despite frequent performance issues: “Less is more. Simplicity is power.” By providing little more than an API, upon which numerous others have built tools, it doesn’t so directly compete with other services. I wonder if perhaps this is the right approach for a learning system? One…

  • Try Again

    The worst response technical support can give me is to suggest I try something I have already tried without success. An explanation why this suggestion is going to work this time when the previous attempt(s) did not work would help. Otherwise, why would I expect it to work this time when it didn’t last time?…