Installation manual

Installation and Upgrade Information Upgrading to Blackboard Learn 9.1 SP3

Release Notes for Release 9.1 Service Pack 3 (9.1.30151.0) Page 25

Examples of affected user interface settings and other affected areas include:

• Course Settings (which control the Course menu)

• Building Block availability

• Module and Tab availability, role settings, and custom layouts

Customizations will need to be reapplied after the upgrade. To make this process easier, create a

detailed document outlining all existing customizations.

Note Any configuration files removed by the upgrade will be placed in the

<blackboard_directory>/backups/<upgrade_timestamp> directory. Use these

files as a guide when updating the new configuration files to reapply your previous

customizations.

SafeAssign Warning

Institutions choosing to archive courses from a legacy production installation and then restore the

courses to a new 9.1 instance will lose some of the data associated with SafeAssign, specifically

SafeAssignments in restored courses and the student submissions to those SafeAssignments will

be inaccessible. In addition, this option could potentially create a privacy issue where some

students would be able to see submissions that are not their own.

To avoid these issues, when SafeAssign is heavily used, Blackboard recommends that one of the

other two upgrade paths is selected: In-Place Upgrade or Fresh Install – Data Migration.

If your institution chooses the archive/restore option, you will need to have the existing

SafeAssign institution database copied from the previous installation to the new installation.

Please open a ticket with Client Support to request this copy after the new production installation

is complete.

Custom Themes Warning

Significant changes were made to the application markup and CSS in Release 9.1 to support new

features and accessibility standards. These changes can cause customized themes and color

palette changes created in earlier releases to malfunction as well as fail to apply styles to new

features.

Comments have been added to the CSS files to make them easier to read and understand. These

comments identify new elements and elements that are no longer used. Extraneous sectors have

been removed.

Previous Content Management Clients Warning

If your institution is planning to upgrade directly from Blackboard Learn 9.0 or earlier please be

aware of possible complications with Content Management. Clients who have previously licensed

the Content Management module, but no longer have such a license, may encounter problems

when upgrading to Release 9.1. This occurs because of lingering schemas in the database that

require a Content Management license. Because of these lingering schemas, the installer is

unable to upgrade the database properly and will fail.

If your institution’s database has lingering schemas from a previous Content Management license

you must obtain the appropriate uninstaller script from Blackboard Client Support to remove these

schemas before upgrading to 9.1.