From: Office of the Vice President of Operations & CIO
To: CCNY Faculty/Students
Subject: Blackboard and Distance Learning Updates
Dear Faculty and Students,
With so much going on all day I wanted to stop for a moment an update you on some items:
Additional Blackboard Help Desk Support
Anticipating thousands of additional faculty and students who may now require Blackboard 24/7 helpdesk support, CIS is working with University Procurement to acquire third-party services that will complement in-house capacity to support issues related to “navigation within Learn, how to use Blackboard Collaborate,” among other common Blackboard issues that our CUNY community may need help with. Services we are exploring will include persons to answer off hours inquiries and provide assistance with Blackboard issues. If the issue relate to navigation within Learn, how to use Blackboard Collaborate, replaying a recording, as an example, the support agent will guide the caller through the challenge. If the support agent cannot resolve the callers needs at the time they will capture the question in an email and forward the matter to the appropriate service desk at the college or central office. More to come as we work out the details and logistics.
Additional Resources: Distance Learning
CIS has been working with Adobe on how the University can take advantage of their recent announcement that would significantly reduce the need of students who have access to adequate computing devices at home to visit campus labs.
CIS is working now with Adobe to enable student access through the CUNY Login page using their @login.cuny.edu credentials. Faculty already have home use of these tools under our current CUNY licensing agreement. College CIOs can assist in activating faculty access If needed. Both Adobe and CIS are now working to enable these additional student accounts by March 19th.
- Adobe is making temporary at-home access to Creative Cloud available until May 31, 2020 for universities who currently have only lab access for students, at no additional cost.
- Adobe provides a student asset migration portal that enables graduating students to transfer the assets associated with their assigned school account to a personal account.
- Adobe will be sharing a curated set of resources soon on the Adobe Education Exchange website to help faculty with their transition to online instruction.
Ken Ihrer
Vice President of Operations
Chief Information Officer
The City College of New York
Last Updated: 03/21/2020 22:10