This semester I have been teaching two large sections of calculus I at Florida State University. FSU is a big time BlackBoard user. The system has been in use for many years and always worked fine. Until this week. This is also the last week of classes. Final examinations are next week. Hence this week is extremely busy time students using BlackBoard to prepare for the final examinations or to submit course work. Hence closing down BlackBoard and restarting it is not really an option.

The symptoms are BlackBoard answering very, very slowly, and sometimes failing to gather the necessary content from the database. Perhaps too many users, or an angry and very capable student hacking the system.

From the FSU BlackBoard page on April 17: "We currently do not have an estimated time of recovery; however, we are working around the clock to get things running smoothly again as soon as possible. We realize that the timing of these problems is extremely inconvenient and appreciate your patience given the circumstances."

Fortunately I am using WebALT services together with BlackBoard. So I have a way to deal with this situation. I will report here if I find out what the cause for this problem was.

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