2. Staff
3. Prepare for unexpected downtime of the learning technologies

Information on the current status of Blackboard and Collaborate

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Plan ahead

Familiarise yourself with alternative webinar options

Teams

Teams is a quick and easy alternative to Collaborate.

• • Students do not have to have Teams installed on their machine or their phone to be able to join a Teams meeting but it will be easier if it is installed.
  • They do not have to be logged into the Teams app.
  • A Teams meeting has a capacity of 300 attendees.

Download Teams onto your computer in readiness – this gives you extra functionality.

Make sure that you can:

• • • Create a Teams meeting and email the link to your meeting to your students – the easiest way to do this is via Outlook and Teams on the ribbon.
    • Share your screen in Teams
    • Record a Teams meeting
    • Find the recording
    • Create Teams breakout groups

Panopto webcast and Veevox message board 

You can use Panopto to broadcast a live session so your students can watch and listen to your presentation.
The downside of this is that there is no two-way communication, you can combine the webcast with a Veevox message board so they can send you questions.

It takes a little preparation in advance and your students will need the link to the broadcast.

• • Set up a Panopto webcast
  • Set up a Veevox message board
  • Record a webcast – Panopto will record your webcast and make it available in the module folder in the same way as a recording

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Be ready to communicate with your students in alternative ways

Prepare your communications with your students without using Blackboard.

You will be able to quickly send them a link to your alternative webinar and resume your teaching.

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Familiarise yourself with the Solve Portal

During a period of unplanned disruption, you will find the latest updates on Solve.

• • Bookmark the Solve portal readiness.

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Back up your teaching materials

Keep a copy of your teaching materials such as your slides, videos or worksheets in case Blackboard is unavailable. Make sure in advance you are able to access these storage areas from all your devices.

• • Box
  • OneDrive 

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During the disruption 

When to decide what to do

It is very difficult to know when to stop waiting for a system to recover and when to take action.

Mostly, Digital Services or TEL will not be able to say exactly when a system will recover. If you have 50 minutes a week with your students, Collaborate is down for five minutes, how long do you wait – it is easy to waste another ten minutes.

If you are prepared you can move your class from Collaborate to Teams in a couple of minutes as soon as the disruption starts.

Get the latest information on the disruption 

• • Go to the Solve homepage and look for Broad Service disruptions.
  • Add yourself to the disruption notice to receive emailed updates on progress.

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When you have decided to move your class

Make a decision to switch to another platform and go ahead with the move.

Don’t look back to Collaborate once you have made your decision, you will only waste more time.

Send out the information to your students and press ahead with your move.