Upgrading
Version 6
Upgrading our Blackboard LS
from 5.6 to 6.1
To briefly revisit the technical specifications
to our particular implementation of Blackboard, we
installed the Enterprise Edition of the Blackboard
Learning System 5.6 running under the Microsoft Advanced
Server Operating System, with an SQL Server 2000
back-end database. We fully integrated and automated
our data imports using the Blackboard snapshot process
with our SIS, personnel, agency and timetabling systems.
However, our test server specification is a much
lower specified standard Dell Workstation, running
Windows 2000 server and why this is important will
become apparent when describing the upgrade process
below.
Getting Started
My first point of contact to kick-off our upgrade
process was my very helpful Blackboard account manager,
who explained the process of how he would set up
the download of the new software and send me a license
key to access it. He also explained that we would
have 30 days or so to put the new software on our
test server in order to “demo” the process
and software before upgrading the live production
server. He also suggested that as we had been running
the system for two academic years and would want
to migrate our existing courses and content, it would
be wise to consider the purchase of two days consultancy
to help with the migration of these materials into
version 6.1. I then received my license key and duly
downloaded the new software from the “behind
the blackboard” site and began my planned upgrade
schedule.
Teething Problems
My first misunderstanding was that this was an “upgrade” of
Blackboard LS 5.6 to 6.1 where the current software
installation is upgraded to the latest version 6.1.
It is not. It is a new installation of the latest
version 6.1. A subtle, but important difference to
take into account when planning your “upgrade”.
In order to install Blackboard LS 6.1 we had to first
uninstall version 5.6. This was not apparent in any
of the documentation that I reviewed prior to the
installation and, call me stupid, but I initially
ran the new version 6.1 installation as an upgrade
over 5.6, after installing the pre-requisites as
instructed. Surprise, surprise, but the install failed.
Fortunately, there was a log file produced on failure
that gave an indication as to the nature of the problem,
but this meant we had to do a manual uninstall of
Blackboard 5.6 which was a bit messy and somewhat
time consuming. Eventually, however, we were able
to completely uninstall version 5.6 and successfully
ran the installation file for 6.1.
I mentioned earlier that, due to reasons of economy,
we ran our test server on only a basic Dell workstation.
Although this is a Dell Pentium 4 workstation (and
obviously well below the Blackboard minimum specification
for the Blackboard LS) it had been perfectly adequate
for our needs of testing and demo of the Blackboard
LS 5.6 for the last two years The “upgrade” path
recommended by Blackboard was very sensibly to install,
migrate, test and document everything on the test
server first, before attempting anything on our production
server. However, this was not possible on our current
test server and therefore required the hardware to
be upgraded to something closer to Blackboard’s
minimum specification.
My next misunderstanding was that our current snapshot
process would be a straight copy into the new version.
This is not the case. Blackboard 6.1 has the integration
and data management tools build into the software,
but not the snapshot controller. It still utilises
the data files we extract from our current systems,
but it does not use the Perl scripts and custom files
as in Version 5.6
Lessons learnt so far:
- Be aware this is not an upgrade but a new
installation.
- The recommended upgrade path could
have hardware, software and/or usage implications
for
your test server, especially, if like us, you have
other uses your test server.
- The new software is
free but if you require any consultancy services
from Blackboard, as recommended
for the course migrations, ensure you have some
money set aside in your budget.
- If you are using
the Snapshot Controller in your current Blackboard
implementation, be aware
there is different implementation of the Snapshot
Controller in version 6.1
To be continued:
In the next edition of ‘bbmatters’ I
will finish the saga of our upgrade to 6.1 by describing
our course content migration from 5.6 to 6.1 and
our first data import using the Snapshot tool into
6.1.
Goerge Wraith
New College Durham
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