25 May 2011

VLE upgrade project

Over the next two months the VLE Support Service will evaluate, configure, test and deploy Blackboard Learn 9.1, the latest update to our institutional VLE.

Blackboard Learn 9.1 brings a range of new features and improvements to our current implementation, the most noticeable being a more intuitive user interface (see what's new here).

This is a highly technical project, however, we really want to engage with VLE users to ensure that they are up to date with our progress and are involved wherever possible. We'll be asking VLE champions and stakeholder representatives from across the University to participate in testing, and will also ask all faculties to help organise a visit of the 'VLE Upgrade Road Show'.

The upgrade will take place during the summer of 2011 and will require a period of downtime (that is the VLE will be unavailable). This is unavoidable. We'll keep this time to a minimum but expect there will be one to two weeks when the VLE will be totally unavailable (we are working with schools to identify a time that will have the least impact).  We will also need to schedule several periods of downtime leading up to the upgrade. Be assured we will always seek to minimise the impact to users by scheduling downtime out of term where possible.

For ongoing communication, our blog (+twitter), mailing list and project website will keep you up to date with the project:

To contact the project team regarding the upgrade email  info@vles.leeds.ac.uk

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