Tell Me
First, wait a few minutes and try again.
Second, figure out whether Blackboard is down, or whether the problem is elsewhere – perhaps in your network connection, or a campus-wide computing problem such as authentication or myUMBC.
If you usually go to Blackboard through myUMBC, try going to https://blackboard.umbc.edu directly. It could be that myUMBC is having a problem but NOT Blackboard.
Try using your web browser to connect to google.com. If you can't, then the problem is in your connection to the Internet. If you can, next try connecting to other UMBC systems (e.g. http://gmail.umbc.edu or http://my.umbc.edu). If you can't connect to other systems then the problem isn't with Blackboard alone, and you should contact Technology Support to alert them to the problems.
If the system is totally unavailable, check our downtime schedule page to see if we have scheduled maintenance.
If it's during the ordinary business day (9-4 M-F), then almost certainly a support staff member already knows that there is a problem and is working on fixing it. Please check our news blog for any status info.
You can always enter a ticket at any time. Go to http://my.umbc.edu/help and put in a help request.
Blackboard can and will have scheduled maintenance throughout the year, but is very seldom down except as scheduled. Any scheduled downtime is posted on the DoIT News section on https://doit.umbc.edu/news and to the Bb Announcements group on myUMBC. Additionally, the splash page for Blackboard will display a downtime notice when maintenance is scheduled and Blackboard is offline:
