We are pleased to announce that BMCC is upgrading from Blackboard version 6.3 to version 8 starting with the Spring 2009 semester.

This move comes as part of a CUNY-wide project in which the Online BA and Graduate Center courses upgraded during the Fall 2008 semester, with most of the remaining CUNY schools upgrading in Spring 2009.

From the user standpoint, the most obvious difference will be that upon logging into Blackboard, you no longer have to choose which school's Blackboard to enter. This is because all CUNY courses will reside on the same Blackboard. Therefore, when you log in you will see all courses and organizations in CUNY that you are teaching, studying, or otherwise involved in. This will permit easier collaboration among students and faculty at different CUNY colleges.

If you are an instructor, there will be some major changes as follows:

* Digital drop box phased out, use the assignment feature as an alternative
* Enhanced discussion board
* Enhanced grade center
* 25 MB limit per uploaded file
* Course size limits
* New plagiarism checker (Safe Assign)
* New self and peer assessment
* New bookmarking (Scholar)

Faculty who log in to Blackboard 8 now should see empty course shells for Spring 2009. Fall 2008 courses have been copied over to Blackboard 8, so that instructors can do a course copy from Fall 2008 to Spring 2009 courses .

Blackboard 6 users, especially students, should be able to manage fine in Blackboard 8 without special training . Faculty and staff are welcome to register for workshops that cover the major changes. Please check http://socrates.bmcc.cuny.edu/workshop/ for updated schedules and registration (all registration is online).

While the upgrade will provide enhanced functionality, we realize that many migration processes, especially those involving such large numbers of users, may be subject to unforeseen technical problems. Please be assured that in the event of serious technical difficulties, we will delay the upgrade until a future semester.