MELA Meeting Minutes 2003 - 2017

like to see some proctor training. Ms. Kimble stated that money is available for training and the development of training. ii. A general discussion ensued about problems with test proctoring. Mr. Kynerd suggested that the association try to get a group of publisher representatives together to discuss some of the issues we experience with testing software etc. iii. Ms. Kimble suggested that DLCs find out from instructors what requirements they have for proctored testing including programs, plug-ins, links to web-sites etc. so that she can compile a list to be presented to all colleges. iv. Ms. Kimble also noted that the association needs to regain its focus on the strategic plan since we will likely be asked for a report on this very soon. v. Jason Pugh mentioned that because of auditing issues with the assessment fee, the way the fee is determined will be revisited. Audra Kimble stated that June 24 th is the date that the number will be pulled from the enrollment tool for fee assessment. Other a. A general discussion ensued about the two-day add/drop period for the fall. Many expressed their concern that this is not enough time to complete add/drop. b. Ms. McCrimmon presented Jason Pugh with a gift of appreciation on behalf of the DLC association.

V.

VI.

Topic of the Day--Blackboard Presentation a. David Floyd, Harry Choi, Sharon Della presented a Blackboard services update i. ASP Services 1. ASP services update 2. MSVCC Issues and Resolutions

3. Ms. Shows asked when the increased load capacity was added? The answer was the end of February. Ms. Shows further enquired as to whether it would be helpful for MSVCC to let Blackboard know when we expect to have peak times? The answer was yes, and they plan to have conference calls to discuss expectations 4. Discussion board / Announcement/Assessment Posting issues Root issue: the compression netscaler load balancer caused a problem with certain browsers not being able to unpack compressed data. Blackboard's resolution was to turn off compression for MSVCC on the load balancer. 5. Intermittent user access issues Root issue: took sometime to diagnose-due to difficulty of replicating the reported issues (process of elimination): Resolution steps: i. moved to a new database server ii. setup layer 7 health-checks on the server iii. upgrade to latest service packs iv. database maintenance/re-indexing v. tune Blackboard application parameters vi. upgraded Linux operating system from 7.2 to AS 2.1. (BB thinks this solved the problems we've been having, but Ms. Kimble has still had to call this week, even today, about the platform being slow.

Resources involved: ASP DBAs & operations, product development

ii. Communications going forward 1. Who/How/When

99