Blackboard

UPDATE: I’m now in grad school — at a different university — and this is still an issue! Honestly, what? It’s first day of school, and I can’t even get into the app because it keeps having me sign in. Ridiculous. • • • • • • As a college student, I have been using Blackboard for 3 years now. I could overlook all of the other little inconsequential things that bug me about this app and give it 4 or 5 stars, but there are two major issues. #1: Every time you click on the app, you have to log in. It doesn’t matter if you just logged in five minutes ago, you have to log in again. It’s ridiculously annoying and frustrating, and sometimes not being logged in means you miss notifications. I mean, I didn’t always have this issue. It’s like the issue was fixed and then it started again. #2: Clicking on notifications doesn’t lead you to the notification source. For example, if I get a grade notification, it won’t lead me to the assignment. Sometimes it’ll just open the app and then freeze my phone. Other times, it’ll take me to a random page in the app. But, as I said before, lately I haven’t been getting notifications because of the whole “log in every two seconds Or Else” issue. I can deal with other little issues, but missing notifications from my professors and assignment reminders? That’s not okay. I shouldn’t have to rely on my email to do what your app is supposed to. TL;DR: I’d just really like to be able to log in and stay logged in please.

In a word, I would describe this Ap as “Fine”. I don’t love anything about it and I don’t really think it does a great job at anything, or even a good job at anything. But it doesn’t do a bad job either. It allows one to see assignment due dates and grades and make submissions in a way that isn’t pleasant, but isn’t hard to figure out either. Some notes Give me a place to view my calendar regarding due dates, for all classes in one place. This would be huge and I cannot stress this enough. Similar vein, give me a place where I can see all of my grades at the same time. Less significant but would still be pretty good. Otherwise, maybe set it up so I can submit something from Google Drive/Notability/GoodNotes/Pages straight to an assignment, something that is possible with Canvas and Schoology. Set up the assignments so that I can see the rubric/goal of the assignment in the same spot that I submit the assignment. As is I have to go back and forth between the two and it’s annoying and adds steps. Could just be the way my professor has it setup, but if so all of my professors have done this so … Finally kinda buggy sometimes. File formats wont open, or not well within the app, and this is true with a lot of links as well.

At the start of every semester one or more professors decided to post their entire semester all at once. As I’m typing this I’m getting notification after notification on my phone that an assignment due in 2 months has been posted or some other obscure thing. And just when I think the notifications stop another wave rolls through. I would love to see if there’s a way to keep track of how many notifications I’ve received but iPhone maxes out at 99. I’ve been getting notifications for the past hour probably with close to at least 500 notifications. It’s midnight and I would like sleep. I would turn notifications off but I have professors that aren’t mad men and post things when the students will need them so I like to see when the considerate ones post new assignments. Bottom line is for some reason when ever professors post stuff it takes for ever for the items to be uploaded and they all seem to come in at midnight waking me up or keeping me from sleep. This probably isn’t an app issue but rather than the actual site itself and that’s what needs to be fixed here. Or maybe max out notifications at like 10 or something. And then have the notification say “you have 10 or more new things added to blackboard” or something similar to that effect. There are plenty of other issues with the app that I’m sure several people have already complained about but if you care about the well being and sanity of students at university that use this program please stop the notifications.