eCampus Announcements
Blackboard Data Center Maintenance May Cause Service Interruptions on Sun, 03/31, 1:00-6:00 a.m.
Blackboard, the vendor for eCampus, will perform data center maintenance on Sunday, March 31, 1:00-6:00 a.m. Central Time.
The maintenance will affect all of Blackboard's hosted instances in the data center, including eCampus. Users can expect an approximately one hour loss of access sometime during the maintenance time frame, though it is possible the outage may last the entire window. Please plan course activities accordingly.
Support Information
Contact Instructional Technology Services at itshelp@tamu.edu or (979) 458-3417. Email and phone support are available Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central Time.
Contact Help Desk Central at helpdesk@tamu.edu or (979) 845-8300 for technical support outside of normal business hours.
Turnitin Service Disruption on Fri, 02/15, 9:30 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.
FINAL UPDATE
Turnitin has restored services as of approximately 10:30 p.m. Central Time.
- - -
UPDATE AS OF 4:20 P.M.
Turnitin has identified the cause to be a database issue. They are implementing a fix and estimating that by the end of the business day all services should be restored. Based on Turnitin's Pacific Time Zone, this will be approximately 7:00 p.m. Central Time.
- - -
ORIGINAL ANNOUNCEMENT
As of approximately 9:30 a.m. Central Time, Turnitin is experiencing a service disruption. Administrators are working to resolve the issue, but there are no updates yet. This outage is affecting all Turnitin users in the United States and the United Kingdom.
ITS Support Information
Contact ITS at itshelp@tamu.edu or (979) 458-3417. Email and phone support are available Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central Time.
Blackboard Data Center Maintenance May Cause Service Interruptions on Fri, 02/08, 1:00-5:00 a.m.
Blackboard, the vendor for eCampus, will perform data center maintenance on Friday, February 8, 1:00-5:00 a.m. Central Time.
Although Blackboard anticipates no service interruptions during this time frame, they cannot entirely rule out brief periods of intermittent connectivity as network traffic adjusts.
Brief restarts of services for some client systems may also be necessary.
ITS Support Information
Contact ITS at itshelp@tamu.edu or (979) 458-3417. Email and phone support are available Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central Time.
Request eCampus Courses for Spring
Instructional Technology Services (ITS) reminds Instructors of Record and instructional staff of the spring 2019 start-of-semester procedures and the fall 2018 end-of-semester procedures for managing courses in eCampus.
Go to eCampus Tools to request eCampus courses for spring.
eCampus Course Management
- Spring 2019 courses can be requested through eCampus Tools
- Courses are created within 30 minutes and include student enrollments
- Courses are created within 30 minutes and include student enrollments
- Fall 2018 courses will be removed from student view on Friday, January 11
- Course retentions can be facilitated by making a course available to students after the course end date, especially to specific users
Attention Instructors Who Use iClickers
To ensure the TAMU Bookstore has an adequate inventory of iClicker remotes in stock, please inform them if you intend to use the devices for your spring course(s). Email Mary Smith at textbooth@tamu.edu.
- iClicker 2 student remote, ISBN 9781498603041
- iClicker 2 student remote with 6 month REEF Polling bundle, ISBN 9781319187675
Students: Don't See a Course Listed?
Not every course is delivered in eCampus. Instructors must request their courses are loaded into eCampus and then they must make the courses available to students. Your course may appear later in the semester or not at all. Refer to the eCampus Course List for availability.
If you are missing a course your instructor indicates should be in eCampus, please first check your schedule in Howdy to confirm your enrollment. After verifying your enrollment, please send an email to helpdesk@tamu.edu with the course information.
Learning Management System Selection Committee Information
View updates and the latest developments at https://u.tamu.edu/lmsreview.
ITS Support Information
Contact ITS at itshelp@tamu.edu or (979) 458-3417. Email and phone support are available Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central Time.
Email support will be available during the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day university holiday on Monday, 01/21.
REMINDER: eCampus Maintenance Set for Fri, 12/28, 11:30 p.m.-Sat, 12/29, 6:00 p.m.
Instructional Technology Services has scheduled an eCampus maintenance with Blackboard, the system vendor, for Friday, December 28, 11:30 p.m. – Saturday, December 29, 6:00 p.m. Central Time (approximately 18 hours).
Access to eCampus will be unavailable during this scheduled time frame. Please plan system activities accordingly by modifying or rescheduling eCampus-related activities during this maintenance period.
Support Information
Contact ITS at itshelp@tamu.edu or (979) 458-3417. Email and phone support are available Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central Time.
Contact Help Desk Central at helpdesk@tamu.edu or (979) 845-8300 for 24/7/365 technical support outside of normal business hours.
Two eCampus Maintenances Set for Fri, 12/21, 12:00-6:00 a.m. & Fri, 12/28, 11:30 p.m.-Sat, 12/29, 6:00 p.m.
Instructional Technology Services has scheduled two separate eCampus maintenances with Blackboard, the system vendor, during the university's holiday break:
- First maintenance: Friday, December 21, 12:00 (midnight)-6:00 a.m. Central Time
- Second maintenance: Friday, December 28, 11:30 p.m. – Saturday, December 29, 6:00 p.m. Central Time (approximately 18 hours)
Access to eCampus will be unavailable during these scheduled time frames. Please plan system activities accordingly by modifying or rescheduling eCampus-related activities during this maintenance period.
Support Information
Contact ITS at itshelp@tamu.edu or (979) 458-3417. Email and phone support are available Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central Time.
Contact Help Desk Central at helpdesk@tamu.edu or (979) 845-8300 for 24/7/365 technical support outside of normal business hours.
eCampus Outages on Tue, 12/11, 8:00-8:25 a.m. & 9:15-9:25 a.m.
From approximately 8:00 to 8:25 a.m. and from 9:15 to 9:25 a.m. Central Time on Tuesday, December 11, eCampus experienced outages with intermittent availability and slowness. Blackboard Managed Hosting, the vendor for eCampus, has investigated the root cause and has restored services.
If you are still experiencing issues, please clear your browser cookies and cache and try again.
- - -
Fall 2018 & Spring 2019 eCampus Course Management & Grade Submission
Instructional Technology Services (ITS) reminds Instructors of Record and instructional staff of the fall 2018 end-of-semester procedures and the spring 2019 start-of-semester procedures for managing courses in eCampus.
eCampus Course Management
- Fall 2018 courses will be removed from student view on Friday, January 11
- Course retentions can be facilitated by making a course available to students after the course end date, especially to specific users
- Spring 2019 courses can be requested through eCampus Tools
- Courses are created within 30 minutes and include student enrollments
Submit Grades from eCampus to Howdy
The eCampus grade submission feature will be available for transferring final grades directly to Howdy during the date and time ranges below in accordance with the Office of the Registrar.
- Starting Thursday, December 6 at 8:00 a.m.
- Closing Thursday, December 13 at 6:00 p.m. for processing degree candidate grading and graduation clearances
- Re-opening Friday, December 14 at 8:00 a.m.
- Ending Monday, December 17 at 12:00 p.m. (noon) for completing all other final grading
ITS Support Information
Contact ITS at itshelp@tamu.edu or (979) 458-3417. Email and phone support are available Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central Time.
Emergency eCampus Maintenance on Wed, 12/12, 12:00 (Midnight)-3:00 a.m.
UPDATE: This maintenance was not necessary and therefore not carried out by Blackboard Managed Hosting.
- - -
Blackboard Managed Hosting, the vendor for eCampus, will perform emergency maintenance to eCampus on Wednesday, December 12, 12:00 (midnight)-3:00 a.m. Central Time. The maintenance has been scheduled to address recent issues affecting system performance and the Grade Center.
eCampus will be unavailable during this time frame. This time frame has been selected to minimize the impact during final exams and end-of-semester assignment submissions.
Until the maintenance has been completed, ITS recommends that instructors avoid grading due to any potential issues with the Grade Center.
Students may experience errors when attempting to submit assessments. In these cases, ITS recommends that students take screenshots to have a copy of the answers they submitted.
Instructional Technology Services Support Information
Instructors may contact ITS at itshelp@tamu.edu or (979) 458-3417. Email and phone support are available Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central Time.
Help Desk Central Support Information
Students may contact Help Desk Central at helpdesk@tamu.edu or (979) 845-8300. HDC is also available for technical support outside of normal business hours.
For the latest updates, refer to IT Alerts at http://italerts.tamu.edu.
Teague Data Center Power Outage Affected Campus Computing Resources on Saturday, 11/10, 11:00 a.m. - 11:30 p.m.
On Saturday, 11/10, at approximately 11:00 a.m., a major power disruption occurred in the Teague Data Center. This event resulted in an outage of many systems on campus, including the campus network, Exchange email services, Howdy, Mediasite downloads, and the ability to log in to eCampus.
Power was restored to the Teague Data Center around 6:00 p.m., and the Division of IT worked to bring systems online as quickly as possibly.
Shibboleth IDP, the authentication used by eCampus, was reliably restored at approximately 11:00 p.m. Some users may have been able to log in to eCampus successfully prior to this time with intermittent availability.
By approximately 11:30 p.m., many services were restored.
Refer to http://italerts.tamu.edu for more specific information and times.
ITS Support Information
Contact ITS at itshelp@tamu.edu or (979) 458-3417. Email and phone support are available Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central Time.