Blackboard outages mean more to some than just red print on the myACU homepage. For Hab Adkins, manager of programming and support for Web Integration and Programming, outages mean a lot of work behind the scenes – and often frustration from students.

“[Blackboard outages are] annoying,” says Vandia Sands, senior biology major from Nassau, Bahamas. “There have been times when class assignments have been postponed or canceled because of an outage.”

Adkins understands the importance of the program to students and the problems outages can create.

“Unless there is some kind of emergency, we try to never take away Blackboard from the students while classes are in session,” he said.

He explained, however, that such outages are necessary. The Blackboard company periodically provides updates to address security issues or add new features, similar to software updates from Apple or Microsoft. The Web Integration and Programming staff uses Blackboard downtime to install these updates, but during the installation, the program is unavailable to students and faculty.

Blackboard is a web-based software program that manages courses so students and faculty can engage in online discussions, quizzes and virtual chatting. The software is used by professors on campus as an organized way of posting grades and interacting with their students.

Tracy Shilcutt, associate professor of history, uses Blackboard for all of her classes.

“My favorite thing about Blackboard is the grade book,” she said in an e-mail interview. “Students can see their grades, and that helps them know where they stand academically at any point in the semester.”

The Web Integration and Programming staff makes sure the student body is aware of the outages a day before they occur. They also make sure the updates occur from 5-7 a.m., which is downtime for most online activity on campus.

For more information about the Blackboard program, visit www.acu.edu/technology/helpdesk/blackboard.html.