Does anyone else have half of last semester's classes and half of this semester's classes listed on Blackboard rather than all of this semester's classes only?

Yep. It was throughouly confusing for a bit. I have no idea why.

Mine shows all of last semesters and half of this semesters

I was in that boat till I bitched for a while, now I have all of this and last semesters classes up.

PS you can eliminate the SEEING part buy clicking pencil circle (between the minimize and close circles in the top right corner) and checking only this semesters classes...

Old classes won't go away until your professors for those classes make it unavailable, new classes will not appear until your professors fpr those classes make them available. This is how the professors wanted it, so that's why IT made the change. No one that I work with in IT actually likes this, because it's resulted of hundreds of calls and tickets into the helpdesk and a ton of confused people, but what the professors want, they get

And I did the same thing jthxv did to hide my old classes. Some instructors are technology-phobic and won't touch Blackboard with a ten foot pole, so unless you do that, you'll be seeing those classes for as long as you're a student at UMR....

<rant>

Hurray for 'upgrades'. It seems to me when technology becomes cumbersome that people are less likely to use it. I used to goto the courses page on BB to goto the class I want to get information for as it had the professors name in the list. The courses under 'home' are a bit too cryptic for my taste.

Users are dumb, IT should take back control of Blackboard so it is actually useful... Thank goodness some professors still use their personal web pages to distribute information, a place where (for now) they still have control.

</rant>

Devil, how were the profs informed? I am not in any way trying to argue, I just don't think any of my profs know about it, because most of them are very good about getting shit done in a timely manner, and NONE of my old classes have been removed.

<suggestion>
O-Kay I'll also provide a suggestion along with my bitching...

Perhaps IT could "flush" blackboard about a week or so after a semester ends?? This would help correct classes taught by grad students who may only teach one semester. I have a IST class that is still showing up, and this grad student used BB, yet this class has not been "closed" yet I guess...

I kind of like the idea of only seeing classes from the professors that intend to use Blackboard. So on that point I can see the rational.

</suggestion>

Honestly, I have no idea if, how and when they were informed. All I was told was that profs wanted this change because they either wanted more time to archive stuff from old classes or still had students working with stuff posted on old classes. I'm not sure how many profs requested this, but the general consensus from the profs I've talked to is that it's a pain in the ass.

It probably wasnh't even that many profs requesting this to begin with...likely few enough that IT could work with them on a case-by-case basis to take care of their needs....but I guess whoever ultimiately made the decision to make this change perceived it differently. There might have been X amount of profs requesting this change and being vocal about it, and yet all of the other profs who were happy with the way things were never said anything because they had no idea this change was even being discussed and assumed things wouldn't change. So when you have X people telling you to make the change, and none telling you to keep it, I guess they assumed that all profs wanted this, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

I have a feeling that BB will go back to the way it was next semester. This little experiment was an utter failure. And the higher-ups at IT know it...it's not like other changes made in IT and other departments where everyone hates it, but the higher-ups think it's great and refuse to change it back.


I think you might one of a few who feel that way. A lot of students still use Blackboard to communicate with each other even if the profs don't use BB.

Ahh. Good point. I did not think about that one...

This is my 4th semester at Rolla, and the first time that all of my teachers (except for physics, they are their own world) have actually used blackboard. I think the interface is really cluttered, but at least I am able to eventually find everything I need.

I asked one of my prof's about this because for a while his was the only classes I had on blackboard. He said that the instructors should have all been informed by a very confusing email and/or letter that most of them probably wouldn't understand and that was why none of them had updated it yet. He also said the new changes were designed to make old class information available for two years. That seems a bit excessive to me... I like to trash most of the papers after the semester's over, but I guess somebody out there wanted this.

I'm still signed up for ME 242 in blackboard (this is my third year of my PhD) and I can't see any of this semesters classes at all.

I dont have any classes on mine.

Once I hid all of last semesters classes I only have Chem 1 showing now. Does anybody know if Calc 1 uses blackboard? If so i'm screwed.