The Virtual High School Global Consortium uses the Internet as the primary vehicle for instruction. Students taking a VHS NetCourses will use a web browser to access their courses. Students considering participation in VHS must have Internet connectivity and be able to access the Internet daily. Students must use a compatible web browser.

Computers must have a direct Internet connection or a dial-up modem operating at 56K or greater.

Browser Requirements for Blackboard Courses 

Below we've outlined the browsers that will and won't work with Blackboard, sorted by operating system. Browsers not listed below (AOL,  MSN Explorer, etc.) are not supported, and may encounter problems with Blackboard.

Java Requirement

Some Blackboard features, including components of the Visual Text Box Editor require Java. We recommend all users install a current version of Java (1.6 or higher). Earlier versions of Java can cause problems for users in the discussion board and other areas of Blackboard.

Note on Windows Vista

Blackboard reports that Windows Vista operating system has been tested and deemed compatible with Blackboard, and we are not aware of any specific problems using Vista for VHS at this time.

Full Table of Browser Compatibility:

	IE 5.2	6.0	7.0	Netscape 7.1	8.0	Firefox 1.0+	Safari 1.0	1.1	1.2	2.0
Win 2000/98/ME		OK		OK	OK	OK
Win XP		good	OK	OK	good	good
Windows Vista			OK			OK
Mac OS X.2	OK			OK		OK	OK*
Mac OS X.3	OK			good		good		OK*	good*
Mac OS X.4				good		good				Bad*

Key:

• GREEN Entries are compatible with the Blackboard WYSIWYG text box editor,
• ORANGE entries are compatible with most Blackboard features, but are not compatible with the WYSIWYG editor (users will get a plain text box).
• RED entries have serious bug problems in Blackboard.
• good = fully tested by Blackboard
• OK = not fully tested, but should work without any problems.