Technical Requirements
If you are accessing Blackboard from home or at work, Aberdeen College recommends you have the following to ensure you can take full advantage of the interactivity on the courses:
- A computer (one that you can access frequently and work on for an extended period of time) and which has the following minimum system requirements.
- Windows ME / 2000 / XP with SP1 / Vista
- Minimum 64 MB RAM, 1 G of free disk space
- 150 MHz or higher processing speed
- Internet Explorer 6 or Netscape 6
- Monitor capable of at least 800 x 600 resolution
- Speakers or headphones
- A Broadband Internet connection.
- An e-mail account and program capable of reading and sending file attachments, such as Microsoft Outlook, Hotmail or Yahoo mail.
- A word processing software application (such as Microsoft Word) installed on your computer.
- Other recommendations:
- Anti-virus software such as Norton Anti Virus or McAffee on your computer.
- Java Runtime Environment
- Adobe Flash Player
- Adobe Authorware Player
- Microsoft Word Viewer
- Microsoft Excel Viewer
- Microsoft Powerpoint Viewer
- Adobe Acrobat Reader
- Enable JavaScipt, Java and Cookies
- Disable any "pop-up blocker" software that you have installed on your computer.
- Set your screen resolution at 1024 x 768 pixels or higher, for optimum viewing.
- Download a Blackboard Certified Browser (see below). Aberdeen College recommends that users adhere to Blackboard's Certified browser options. In the table below, certified (indicated by an X) browsers are 100% supported by Blackboard. Browsers with an empty cell, indicate that Blackboard is not aware of any issues, but that testing is limited.
| Microsoft Internet Explorer |
Netscape Navigator |
|||||||||||
| 4.5 | 5.0 | 5.1 | 5.2 | 5.5 | 6.0 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 6.0 | 6.1 | 6.2 | 7.0 | |
| Windows 2000 | x | x | x | |||||||||
| Windows XP | x | x | x | |||||||||
| Mac OS | x | x | x | x | x | |||||||
| 9.2 | ||||||||||||
| Mac OS X.1 | x | x | x | x | ||||||||
| Mac OS X.2 | x | x | ||||||||||
Please Note: The average course size is 35-50MB. If your broadband connection is limited you may want to take this into account. The course will not work on an Apple Mac. However, if your computer cannot run the course you can still come into the IT Centre to study at no extra cost.