Holistic Approaches for New Releases: Training, Implementation and Support

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Holistic Approaches for New Releases Training,
Implementation and Support

• Presented by
• Dave Fraedrich
• Manager of Course Management System
• Maricopa Community College District
• Lori Malcolm
• Blackboard User Support
• GateWay Community College

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Background

• Maricopa County Community College District
• Largest Community District in the US
• 7 of 10 Colleges use Blackboard
• Interface run includes over 100,000 students
• About 5,000 courses per semester
• About 1,500 faculty per semester

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Bb Alliance

• Members from all 7 Colleges that use Bb
• Member include
• IT Directors
• Campus Administrators (Inst. Deans)
• Trainers
• College Bb Admins
• District IT Staff
• District Bb Admins

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Alliance Sub-Committees

• Training
• Content System Pilot
• Building Blocks
• Strategic Planning

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Planning for a New Release

• Look at all Bb related release materials
• Involve DBAs (ex. Unicode for V7)
• Server Team (V7 needs Win2003)
• Networking (New way to access content files in
  V7)
• Install on Dev Server
• Document any issues with upgrade

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Planning for a New Release

• Initial Testing
• Training sub-committee tests and creates training
  materials.
• Apply any Service Packs to Dev as needed.

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Planning for a New Release

• Upgrade Opportunities
• Spring/Summer Break (May)
• Summer/Fall Break (August)
• Winter Break (Late December)

Faculty prefer that only minor changes be made
at this time, no major features be added.
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Select Upgrade Window

• Testing Results
• Can Quick Reference Guides be ready in time?
• Can classroom training be ready in time?
• What do the newsgroups say about the release? Is
  it stable?
• Check Known Issues on Behind the Blackboard
• ITS Support (DBAs, Backups, etc)

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Performing the Upgrade

• Schedule ITS support, Backup Admin, Database
  admin, network support, etc. to be on hand during
  the upgrade.
• Schedule full backups for night before of both
  content files and SQL data.
• Special backup of web/app server Bb directory
  just before running the updater.
• Special backup of SQL data by DBA just before
  applying upgrade

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Performing the Upgrade

• Apply Upgrade
• Initial login/testing
• Re-apply customizations performance tuning
• Team Testing / Testing Plan
• Go / No-Go decision

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Testing Plan

• Login as Administrator
• Test major components
• Search Classes
• Access Course Content
• Etc
• Test Login as Instructor
• Test Login as Student (uses different LDAP)

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Next Steps

• Make Development or Test environment more like
  Production
• Load Test

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Thank You!

• Dave Fraedrich
• Manager of Course Management Systems
• Maricopa Community College District
• david.fraedrich_at_domail.maricopa.edu

Lori Malcolm Blackboard User Support GateWay
Community College lori.malcolm_at_gwmail.maricopa.edu