Recommended Browser – Google Chrome
In all of our testing we have found that Google Chrome provides the best experience and is the most compatible with Blackboard and its tools, including Turnitin. As such Chrome is our recommended browser.
On campus, Blackboard will automatically open in Chrome when selected from the desktop shortcuts box (towards the top right corner). At home, users can find more information and download links from the Google Chrome home page.
Note: those with University loaned laptops should already have Chrome installed as standard.
Other Browsers
Whilst we recommend Chrome as the most compatible browser, we are aware that users may make use of other browsers either by default or by choice. Please be aware that using browsers other than Chrome may result in certain features of Blackboard not working correctly or not being available. This is often as a result of the browser not being updated to a current browser standard, as a result of a browser no longer being developed/supported by their creators, or being out of date.
Of the other major browsers available to users, we have found the following to be true through testing the latest version of each for their general compatibility with the Learning Platform Suite:
Google Chrome – recommended browser, fully supported
Firefox – generally well supported
Edge – generally well supported
Safari – generally well supported, can have issues with third-party cookies which result in Turnitin ‘hanging’ at the upload stage
Internet Explorer – no longer being developed/supported by Microsoft – do not use.
Note: if an issue cannot be resolved for a browser which is different to the recommended browser, support will advise using Google Chrome to resolve the issue.
Individual Tool Requirements
As a guide, the following web pages are published by the suppliers of each of our main tools and outline their minimum system requirements.
Blackboard – supported browsers l browser checker l browser support policy
Collaborate – Chrome support l browser support
PebblePad – supported browsers l browser checker
ReCap – system requirements (YuJa Software Capture)
Turnitin – system requirements
Chrome Automatic Live Captioning
Google Chrome can provide users with automatic captions of videos that they watch, including Collaborate sessions. Google provide instructions on how to turn automatic captions on within their Chrome Help site, along with our short video below.