As we begin a new academic year, ITS has a few updates concerning our Online Courseware System - WebCT.
WebCT was recently acquired by Blackboard, Inc., a major online courseware vendor. This change has not affected IC faculty using WebCT. However, ITS will refer to WebCT as WebCT/Bb to accurately reflect the current environment.
Also, some problems exist with WebCT/Bb, Internet Explorer and Office 2007 documents. ITS is expecting some students to bring the software on campus. Office 2007 (Word 2007, Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007) uses a different file format than previous versions.
• Files from the new version of Office 2007 for Windows currently do not work with WebCT/Bb and Internet Explorer.
• Faculty should encourage their students who use Office 2007 to save their files in the Office 2003 format before submitting them to WebCT/Bb.
• If students try to submit an Office 2007 document, the document will appear as a .zip file and cannot be opened in the current environment.
WebCT/Bb is working on fixing this problem. ITS will implement a solution as soon as one is available. Have a great semester!
ITS Helpdesk
helpdesk@ithaca.edu
4-3282
