My Dundee Blog
Removal of recordings in YuJa
Removal of recordings in YuJa Over the past few years, we have spoken about how we will be removing older recordings. This is for two main reasons – the first and most timely is that we need to reduce our overall storage footprint. The second is to set up and implement a regular retention policy for videos held in YuJa to align with the university’s policy on the retention of teaching assets. On 19 September, 2023, we are going to ... read more
Changes coming to Messages in Organisations
On Friday, 14, July 2023, we will be turning off Messages in all Organisations. What is happening? Messages will be disabled in Organisations. Neither staff nor students will be able to send messages from any Organisation. There will still be a letter icon next to instructor names in the "Organisation Staff" list - this will be sent to the individual user as an email rather than appearing in the "Messages" area in Blackboard. When is it happening? This will be ... read more
Archival of 7-year-old content from My Dundee (2023)
Now that all modules that start in Semester 1 or 2 of 2023 have been created (this includes all modules coded SEM01, SEM12, and SEM02), it’s time to return to the process of archiving modules older than seven years. As part of our annual process, we archive modules older than seven years for a period of six months, after which they are deleted (unless continued archival is requested). It is now time to archive the next batch of modules! What ... read more
University-wide organisations on My Dundee
When you first start at the University of Dundee, whether as a student or member of staff, you'll be enrolled on a number of organisations automatically. Below you'll find a list of organisations that have university-wide enrolment rules set up. Please note that this list is accurate of June 2023, and will not include any School, division, or subject organisations you may also be enrolled on. All staff and students Careers Sessions All students DUSA Dundee Plus Student Funding Unit ... read more
Summary of My Dundee issues for April 2023
What happened? On 20 and 25 April, there were DNS issues affecting My Dundee and associated services. Due to the nature of DNS, what people experienced varied heavily. Some users would not have experienced any issues. Other users were not able to get into embedded tools such as Turnitin, and others were not able to open or download documents from My Dundee. When did it happen? On 25 April, Blackboard reported that these issues began at 08:15 BST and our ... read more
Issue accessing My Dundee and related tools (solution suggested)
Update (15:30 BST 27/04/2023): Blackboard have confirmed that their solution to this issue is in place and it has fixed the issue for the majority of our users at UoD. However, they have noted that due to the nature of DNS, it takes time for this solution to reach everyone and as a result some users are still experiencing access issues. If you are still seeing this issue, and have already tried flushing the DNS using the steps provided in ... read more
DNS issue affecting My Dundee and related tools
From approximately 10:30 BST today (20 April 2023), we had reports from some users who were unable to access Turnitin. We have confirmed that this is due to a global DNS error that Blackboard has reported on their status page. Although this is an issue that originate with Blackboard (My Dundee), it impacted related services that are linked in My Dundee, such as Turnitin. We have only received reports about Turnitin; however, any item that is added to a module ... read more
Announcing the Integrated Video Project
In recent years, we have made significant gains in enhancing our video capabilities to better support student learning. From lecture capture and hybrid delivery to the production of rich asynchronous video content, the university has been committed to leveraging technology to improve the learning experience. However, we acknowledge that there is still much work to be done, and so i'm pleased to announce the launch of the Integrated Video Project. This initiative aims to build on our existing progress and ... read more
Briefing note on AI in education and assessment
Developments in the abilities and ease of access to Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools are receiving extensive media coverage. The focus has largely been on ChatGPT, but there are hundreds of these tools and more recently Google released their own AI conversational chatbot, Bard. Similarly, there is extensive discussion across higher education about the impact that AI will have on learning, teaching and research as well as society at large. An early area of concern is the impact of AI on ... read more
New Course Role!
There is a new course role for members of staff called "Staff - Read-only". This is a role that you should only assign to members of staff. This is not a replacement of "Guest" and therefore should never be assigned to students. This role is very restricted in the view of the module, the actions the user can take in the module, and the user's access to external app tools (such as Turnitin). View: In the top tab, they can ... read more
