Home

Blackboard Technical Requirements

Browsers

Supported Browsers and Operating Systems for Blackboard Learn

Blackboard’s support of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox differs from the other supported browsers. Chrome and Firefox are following a rapid release strategy and releasing updates every 6 or so weeks. Chrome requires an automatic upgrade for end users, whereas Firefox offers the option to turn off the automatic upgrade. Blackboard has decided to support Chrome and Firefox in the broad sense meaning we will accept issues on both browsers and strive to resolve issues on Blackboard Learn as appropriate.

Blackboard has conducted testing using the Stable Channel of Chrome (Chrome 19) and the Final Release Channel of Firefox (Firefox 12) during testing of this release. We resolved browser related issues at the time of releases, but cannot guarantee the compatibility of future versions. We will conduct testing on the latest browsers and Blackboard Learn releases to provide timely information on browser compatibility.

Install Plug-Ins for Blackboard

Some Blackboard courses use browser plug-ins to run certain types of multimedia (e.g. streaming video). To view portions of these courses, you may need one or more of the plug-ins. You may download all of the following, or just come back to this page when you need them. (The following are external links that will take you outside of UNT servers):

  • Real Player: (linked outside of UNT) For viewing streaming video or listening to streaming audio clips

  • Flash: (linked outside of UNT) For viewing animations or using interactive content
  • Java: (linked outside of UNT) For uploading files and web conferencing

  • Shockwave: (linked outside of UNT) For viewing animations or using interactive content

  • Acrobat Reader: (linked outside of UNT) For viewing, downloading and printing Adobe PDF files

  • Windows Media Player: (linked outside of UNT) For viewing streaming video or listening to streaming audio clips

*Quicktime is no longer supported by Apple when installed on the Windows operating system. It is reccomended that instructors that wish to use .mov video files in their course contact their Instructional Consultant to have to video file coverted to a more widely support format.

Technologies Not Supported
The following technologies are not supported:
• Internet Explorer 6, 7
• Firefox 1.x, 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5
• Safari 2.0, 3.x and any version on Windows
• Mac OSX 10.3, 10.4 “Tiger”
• Java 5, although it may continue to work

Turning Off Popup Blockers

If you are unable to view discussion postings, quiz windows, and download links, then you may need to disable pop-up blocking.
How to disable popups for: Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer

Technologies Not Supported

The following technologies are not supported in SP 13:

  • Internet Explorer 6, 7, 11
  • Firefox 1.x, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, and 3.6
  • Safari 2.0, 3.x and any version on Windows
  • Windows XP 64-bit
  • Mac OSX 10.3, 10.4, 10.5
  • Java 5, although it may continue to work

Deprecation of Supported Technologies

Deprecation is a standard software practice to notify the community of future removal of support. These technologies are still tested and expected to perform in the intervening releases until the release in which they are removed from support.

• Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” will no longer be supported with the release of 9.1 Service Pack 10.