CELTIC

Q: What do I do if some or all of my students were taking an assessment when Blackboard experienced a service interruption?

Sometimes, Iona’s Blackboard server experiences service interruptions. Some of these service interruptions are planned, including scheduled maintenance during the maintenance window each week and planned software and hardware upgrades. Some of these service interruptions are unplanned and are due to high levels of activity on Blackboard, power outages, and other unexpected factors.

When a service interruption is required to perform hardware or software upgrades, the Blackboard Administrators communicate the planned maintenance and service interruption via Iona Email to all users.

However, sometimes service interruptions occur unexpectedly and students may lose their connection to Blackboard during an assessment. If this happens, there are several options available to faculty to allow students to successfully complete an assessment:

Clear a Student's Attempt - This option will clear the student's attempt on an assessment and all of the data associated with the assessment. The student will be able to retake the assessment.

Allow Multiple Attempts - This option will allow students to attempt an assessment more than one time. A number of attempts may be designated or unlimited attempts may be allowed. The instructor may decide to score the first, last, highest, lowest, or average of all attempts.

Use Multiple Assessments - An instructor may wish to deploy an alternative assessment for students whom are unable to complete an assessment for any reason. This option may be used in conjunction with Adaptive Release if an instructor does not wish to make an alternative assessment available to all students in a course.

Force Completion - Instructors may wish to uncheck the Force Completion box when deploying a test so that students may re-enter an assessment if they lose their Blackboard connection.
Modify the Test Options>Uncheck Force Completion

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