IRT COVID-19 Updates: Prioritizing Rowan technology distribution & Blackboard Collaborate updates

As Information Resources & Technology responds to the University’s transition to working, teaching and learning remotely due to the COVID-19 emergency, there are many changes to technology resources happening on a daily basis. 

Here are the latest changes as of Thursday, March 26. You can always find our most recent updates at go.rowan.edu/remote, and we are regularly updating information on that page so please check back often. 


University senior leadership prioritizing Rowan technology distribution

The rapid shift to remote working amid the COVID-19 outbreak has led to a spike in demand for Rowan-owned technology. However, due to shipping delays and other supply chain constraints caused by the pandemic, various vendors are unable to meet the University’s needs. 

It is critical that the technology we do have is distributed in a strategic manner that fulfills the immediate needs of the University and positions the institution to quickly respond to the unpredictable nature of this global health emergency. In order to meet that objective, members of the University’s senior leadership team are working together to prioritize the distribution of Rowan technology. 

All technology orders, including orders that were awaiting fulfillment prior to the COVID-19 crisis and orders placed after the crisis began, will be prioritized and distributed based on decisions made by the University’s senior leadership team.

Thank you for your understanding as we all work together in this difficult situation. 

Blackboard Collaborate maintenance planned for Friday morning

Blackboard will be performing system maintenance on its virtual classroom capability, Collaborate, on Friday, March 27, from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.

Blackboard Collaborate will be intermittently unavailable during that four-hour maintenance window. 

This maintenance is not expected to affect access to Blackboard; it will only interrupt the ability to use Blackboard Collaborate.


Blackboard has temporarily disabled some Collaborate features

In anticipation of record use of its virtual classroom capability, Blackboard has disabled the following features in Collaborate for all users nationwide to prevent issues with system stability:

  • Timer (a countdown timer that helps with classroom time management)
  • Chat typing indicator (a visual indicator that someone is typing but have not yet completed their thought; the chat feature itself will still be available)
  • Netstats indicator (a visual indicator of connection quality next to each user) 
  • Reducing the number of video thumbnails from 4 to 2 (this is the maximum number of thumbnails visible in the grid view)  

Blackboard said it expects to reenable these features “once we have more information about how the system is performing and we continue to make improvements.” 


Get answers to remote working & teaching questions

Information Resources & Technology, the Faculty Center and Rowan Online will be hosting Webex sessions for employees who have questions about resources for teaching and working remotely. These sessions will cover tools that are available for communication and collaboration, such as Google Drive and Webex.

 All sessions will be held from noon to 1 p.m.

We will be accepting questions via chat in the sessions. For information about other upcoming sessions, visit go.rowan.edu/remote

If you have any questions, please contact the Technology Support Center at 856-256-4400, or log in to the IRT Support Portal and click Get Help.