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Some campuses that are using Blackboard, a key software program for communication between teachers and students reported that the software program and some of its functionality is behaving strangely with Microsoft Vista.Aside from the known compatibility problems with Blackboard and PCs running on Windows Vista and IE7, problems with the Blackboard’s announcement feature have been reported where users with Vista installed are not able to compose any kind of a message with Blackboard at all.
As a result, some academic IT departments are starting to recommend that students and administrators hold back on installing Vista until the issues have been sorted out.
“Although we aren’t requiring our students and faculty to avoid Windows Vista at home, it is important to understand the issues you will face if you choose to do so,” the IT department at Virginia’s Regent College advises. “Our recommendation is to avoid upgrading to Vista until Blackboard remedies Vista incompatibilities.”
Ohio University also recommends that students swap Internet Explorer for Firefox for use with Blackboard.
According to Jessica Finnefrock, vice president of product development for Blackboard, part of the problem has been the sheer abundance of Blackboard versions in the academic arena and the problems encountered can be different based on each individual release of the product.
“Whenever we have a new end user operating system—whether it’s a new browser or, in this case, a new browser with a new underlying operating system—we actually run all of our versions against it to try to suss out what’s working well and where there might be issues,” she added.
Finnefrock said that Blackboard is concluding those tests this week and will be making all of that information available to its clients on Friday, March 30.
And while Blackboard will be working to correct certain issues on its own side, the company also says that some of the issues are also specific to Microsoft.
However, Microsoft did not address any of PC Magazine’s specific questions about Blackboard.
“We take exhaustive steps both internally, and by working directly with the ecosystem, to remove any speed bumps that innovation—from us or our partners—may cause, long before customers experience them,” said Dave Wascha, director of Windows Client Partner Marketing at Microsoft, in an e-mail.
Wascha said that collaborative work takes care of the vast majority of compatibility issues with devices and applications, which, according to Microsoft, were resolved before Windows Vista shipped.
Blackboard hopes to address the ‘critical issues’ inherent to Blackboard in time for the summer session, Finnefrock said

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