General Information

To successfully complete online classes at West Hills College, end users must have consistent and convenient access to a computer with the following Blackboard Version 7-compatible operating system and browser configuration.

Supported Operating Systems and Web Browser Configurations

Listed below are the supported operating systems and browsers for use with the Blackboard Academic Suite. The Academic Suite is a Web-based application and other browsers and operating system may work well, however, the listed configurations are the only configurations that are tested and supported by Blackboard.  All configurations marked as Compatible have undergone a limited engineering analysis to test areas of the Blackboard Academic Suite that may have browser issues.

The following terms and definitions will be helpful with trying to find your Operating System and Web Browser. 

• Certified - means that it has been fully tested and supported by Blackboard
• Compatible - means key application areas were tested.
• Not tested - specified Browser is not supported for the Operating System.
• Provisional - means that Blackboard will test on Beta versions of new platforms and browsers.  Certification is dependent on release by third parties.

Microsoft® Internet Explorer® Web Browsers

Table Caption:  The following table has the Operating System along the header columns and Web Browsers along the Header Rows.  The information in each cell indicates whether that particular Operating System (in the column header) and Web Browser (in the row header) are certified, compatible, not tested, or provisional.

Mozilla® Firefox Web Browsers

(Netscape is noted below for existing users, but no longer available for download)

Table Caption:  The following table has the Operating System along the header columns and Web Browsers along the Header Rows.  The information in each cell indicates whether that particular Operating System (in the column header) and Web Browser (in the row header) are certified, compatible, not tested, or provisional.

*Usage certified/compatible with newer versions of Blackboard

Apple® Safari® Web Browsers

Table Caption:  The following table has the Operating System along the header columns and Web Browsers along the Header Rows.  The information in each cell indicates whether that particular Operating System (in the column header) and Web Browser (in the row header) are certified, compatible, not tested, or provisional.

*Usage certified/compatible with newer versions of Blackboard

Personal Computers (PCs)

800 MHz Intel® Pentium III processor or equivalent/higher (733 MHz minimum)
512 MB RAM (256 MB minimum)
Windows® 2000, XP, or Vista Operating System

500 MB or greater free hard disk space

Browser: Internet Explorer OR Mozilla Firefox

Macintosh Computers

800 MHz PowerPC® G4 processor or higher (500 MHz PowerPC® G3 minimum)
512 MB RAM (256 MB minimum)
Mac® OS System 10.3 (OS 10.1.3 minimum)

500 MB or greater free hard disk space

Mozilla Firefox for Macintosh OR Apple® Safari

Flip for Mac is recommended for videos used in online courses.

All systems

• High speed Internet connection (recommended) OR minimum 56 kbps modem
• Color monitor 256 colors / 1024 x 768 resolution (800 x 600 minimum)
• Java Plug-in (as of 05/01/05 Blackboard requires a Java Plug-in, J2SE Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.5.0_03 [also known as JRE 5.0] in order to function properly.
  • Windows, Solaris, and Linux users can download the software from Java's website.
  • Macintosh users can verify their installation by going to the Java FAQs page.

Additional Suggested Software

Students must check with their online instructors for specific software requirements for each online class

• Microsoft Office Word is recommended; however, most Word Processing Programs (Wordpad, TextEdit, etcetera) will work.  Microsoft Office products (such as Word) can be purchased for a discounted price through the California Community College Foundation.  If you do not have Word and cannot purchase it at this time, Open Office is available for free and will allow you to open Microsoft Office documents without purchasing the software.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader may be necessary to open certain document types from your instructor.
• PowerPoint viewer can be downloaded from Microsoft's Website for free. If you have a Macintosh, Open Office for Mac OS X is a free solution allowing you to open Office documents without having to purchase the software.
  NOTE:
  You do  not need to download Powerpoint Viewer if you have PowerPoint or Office 2008 for Mac installed on your computer. 
  If using Powerpoint 2003, get the Compatibility Pack for Powerpoint 2007 (and other Office 2007 Programs) by downloading it from Microsoft's Website.
• Windows Media Player 10 or higher (or an equivalent program such as QuickTime or RealPlayer) will be necessary if your instructor uses music or videos. 
• If using a Macintosh, you will need to use the Quicktime Media Player with the plug-in Flip for Mac to view the Windows Media Video (.wmv) files used by many instructors in the online classes.

Communication

Students using Blackboard must use their West Hills College student email account.  Contact the Help Desk if you need help accessing your student email account.  Help Desk contact information can be found at the bottom of the page.

Please note, this is a minimum configuration!

As with all computer applications, the higher the technology of your equipment, the better and faster the processing. Please check with the instructor for your online class for any other hardware/software requirements specific to the course.  Always be prepared for your online class BEFORE it begins to make your online learning experience the best it can possibly be!

What if AOL is my Internet service provider?

Unfortunately, AOL is not fully compatible with Blackboard, the WHC online e-learning software. While some students have had successful online learning experiences while subscribing lto AOL, it is strongly recommended that you use another provider for your Internet access for your online course.  If you must use AOL, please be sure to open Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator and use either of those two browsers to login to the West Hills College Blackboard e-learning environment.  Do not login to Blackboard directly from AOL.

Problems with Vista and Blackboard:

There are known compatibility problems with Blackboard and student PCs that use a combination of Vista and Internet Explorer 7.  It is recommended that Vista users download and use the Firefox Browser.  The Mozilla Firefox browser download link is above.

Helpdesk

Questions should be directed to the toll-free Help Desk, 800.266.1114 x2002 or email at helpdesk@whccd.edu.