Announcements

Direct WebVista Access

You may prefer to access WebVista sites via the recommended path myU Portal. This is an alternative access path.

Maintenance: 2nd and 4th Sundays, 9 a.m. to Noon

To provide the best possible performance of the WebVista system, WebVista will be unavailable the second and fourth Sundays of every month from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. for regular maintenance. We will post to the University's System Status Report page when the system is back up.

SafeAssign Service Available

SafeAssign tools are now available from within WebVista version 4. As the replacement for the similar Turnitin service, SafeAssign gives instructors ways to either detect or confirm suspected incidents of plagiarism. There are also options to help educate students on proper source attribution. Instructors can get more information about the tools on the SafeAssign page.

WebVista B Downtime - May 22, 2008

WebVista B will be unavailable on Thursday, May 22, from 9:00 AM to 5:00PM while we apply Service Pack 3 (SP3) to our current installation of WebVista 4.2.1. The following problems are fixed in SP3:

special characters such as semi-colons or ampersands in link descriptions cause pages to disappear; widespread issues with special characters, including foreign language characters.
problem copying sites due to group assignment sheet links.
issues relating to Daylight Savings Time in assignments and assessments.
issues relating to files with .docx (MS Office 2007) extension.
problems upgrading sites from WebVista 3.

We apologize for the service interruption during working hours, which we avoid in principle. However, this time and date allow for needed resources to be available, while taking advantage of the break between terms.

Please contact webvista@umn.edu with your questions, comments, and feedback. Thank you!

Daylight Savings Update - March 9, 2008

Beginning and end times for Assignments and Assessments that start or end on the first or last day of Daylight Savings Time (i.e., March 9, 2008 and November 2, 2008) are off by one hour. This issue is fixed in WebVista 4.2 Service Pack 3, hotfix 2, which is currently in testing but will not be in place before March 9, 2008. Send questions to webvista@umn.edu.

Request Spring 2008 Sites Before January 15, 2008

New Guaranteed Spring 2008 Site Request Deadline

We do not guarantee that sites requested after January 15, 2008 will be created in time for the first day of classes. Sites will be created on a first-come, first-served basis. After January 15, turnaround times may be longer than two days. Fill out the Site Request Form for each site you will need.

The following may cause delays in creating your site:

incorrect information, including instructor listing, in the class schedule (make sure your department has updated the registration system with the correct information for your class); and
requests to copy sites without owner permission (if you are not an owner of a site you wish to copy, an owner must e-mail permission to webvista@umn.edu before we can copy the site).

WebVista Version 4 Upgrade

On August 10, OIT upgraded all course Web sites on WebVista B to WebVista Version 4. All spring 2008 sites will be on WebVista Version 4.

See a list of new features and issues resolved in Version 4.
See the WebVista Version 3 to WebVista Version 4 Upgrade Roadmap.
See the home page of a site in Version 3 and the same homepage in Version 4.
See which colleges and groups are on WebVista A and WebVista B.
See answers to frequently asked questions.
Sign up for WebVista Version 4 Training now available under the WebVista 4 options. Type webvista in the box under find a course and click go.
Contact a DMC consultant to discuss the use of Version 4.

Please also see the text of the whole June 23, 2007 announcement sent to WebVista instructors and designers.