Course Banner Does Not Display in Announcements

Issue Description
When the course entry point is set to "Announcements", the course banner will not display.

Symptoms
The course banner will display fine in any other area you set as entry point for your course, but not in "Announcements". There are no errors.

Cause
The navigation context wasn't being passed through correctly, so the Announcements page "didn't know" that it was being called as entry point.

Workaround
We do have a patch that will resolve this issue. It does require a restart of Blackboard services.
The attached AS-144546-Announcements-Banner.zip file contains replacement files for these two files: announcement_005fmanager_jsp.class announcement_005fmanager_jsp$Helper.class

1. Back up your announcement_005fmanager_jsp.class and announcement_005fmanager_jsp$Helper.class files found in "blackboard/webapps/blackboard/WEBINF/ classes/blackboard/web/announcements", then replace these files with the ones included in the Blackboard Blogs Company Contact Us Site Map Privacy Policy Terms of Use attached AS-144546-Announcements-Banner.zip file.
   
2. Restart Blackboard services.
   
3. Test to verify that the course banners now display in courses where "Announcements" are set as the course entry page.

Resolved in Version
This issue will be resolved in release 9.2 and in an upcoming service pack for release 9.1. Comments Any issues with a placeholder icon or a red X showing instead of the course banner are completely unrelated to this. This issue is not one of the image not being accessible, not having been copied, or not being found, rather it is a problem with the page context.

Discussion Board Attachments - Unable To Open - provided by Liberty University

Symptoms/Cause:

When an instructor attaches a file to the discussion board (from either IE 8 or Firefox 5.0) the name of the file is listed strangely: (example) and correct read permissions are not granted for students to view. WIDS Intro May2010.pptx - /xid-15653_1 463.436 KB /courses/Betsy_Intro/WIDS Intro May2010.pptx When students try to access it they get an error that says: Not Found The specified resource was not found, or you do not have permission to access it.

(In 9.1 when a file is attached Blackboard creates unique identifiers for content uploaded to it and this is where the unfamiliar name come from.)

Resolution/Workaround:

Faculty: If the file attach icon on the textbox toolbar is used to upload a file in a post, the file is visible by a student. If the faculty uses the "Browse My Computer" button below the textbox, the file cannot be opened by a student.

Student: If the file attach icon on the textbox toolbar is used by the student to upload a file, the file is NOT visible by the faculty member. If the student uses the "Browse My Computer" button, then the faculty can view.

Moral of the story: If you are a faculty member, use file attach icon on the textbox toolbar in a discussion board post. If you are a student, use the Browse Button and not the file attach icon on the textbox toolbar. Faculty: As for the file permissions, if you go to the affected course, click on Files under the Control Panel, click on the course name, click on the chevron next to the affected uploaded file name, click on permissions, click on Add Course User List, check the desired role(s) and rights in order to allow access.

Cannot Delete Announcment - Work Around

Symptoms/Cause: When trying to delete announcements you may receive a red error message.

Resolution/Workaround: Reorder that announcement to a different position in the list of announcements but dragging it by the arrows on the left, then delete.

Graded Discussion Board Forums - Resolved - provided by Liberty University

Blackboard Inc. provided a patch for the software that resolved this issue.

Symptoms/Cause: When trying to use Graded Discussion Board forums, browser hangs when you click on the GRADE button.

Resolution/Workaround: We are currently working with Blackboard to resolve this issue. You can manually read the discussion boards then post the grade through the gradecenter as a working around. Please watch this Known issue for updates once it is resolved.