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Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #196: Update a File

crane lifting the letter G into place in the word change

Occasionally, you may want to overwrite a file with a newer/updated version. It is easy to replace or overwrite files in your Brightspace courses.

Follow these steps to do it.

To overwrite an existing file, you should:

  1. From the context menu of the topic, select Change File. This will prompt you to upload a new file.
  2. Drag and drop the new file into the upload space or click Upload to browse for the new file.
  3. If you would like your students to receive a notification of the updated content, check the Notify students that the content has changed button. Students must have notifications turned on in their personal settings to see the notifications.

example of change file

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You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Image credit: image by geralt from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #172: Update a File

crane lifting the letter G into place in the word change

Occasionally, you may want to overwrite a file with a newer/updated version. It is easy to replace or overwrite files in your Brightspace courses.

Follow these steps to do it.

To overwrite an existing file, you should:

  1. From the context menu of the topic, select Change File. This will prompt you to upload a new file.
  2. Drag and drop the new file into the upload space or click Upload to browse for the new file.
  3. If you would like your students to receive a notification of the updated content, check the Notify students that the content has changed button. Students must have notifications turned on in their personal settings to see the notifications.

example of change file

Want more information?

Deliver Course Content
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Brightspace Known Issues
Continuous Delivery release notes
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Image credit: image by geralt from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #31: Update a File

crane lifting the letter G into place in the word change

Occasionally, you may want to overwrite a file with a newer/updated version. It is easy to replace or overwrite files in your Brightspace courses.

Follow these steps to do it.

To overwrite an existing file, you should:

  1. From the context menu of the topic, select Change File. This will prompt you to upload a new file.
  2. Drag and drop the new file into the upload space or click Upload to browse for the new file.
  3. If you would like your students to receive a notification of the updated content, check the Notify students that the content has changed button. Students must have notifications turned on in their personal settings to see the notifications.

Change File

Want more information?

Update a File
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Brightspace Known Issues
Continuous Delivery Updates
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Image credit: image by geralt from Pixabay

1

Published on 1 Comment on Bb Tip #10: Add File to Content Area

You can upload files such as lecture notes, tutorials and image files for your students to have access to inside of your Blackboard course.

Follow these steps to do it.
To add a file to a content area, go to the [Control Panel] of the course you want to add the file to.

Note: If the content area you want to add the file to is not shown you will have to create it by modifying the course menu. Refer to Bb Tip #7 for instructions on “Customizing the Course Menu”.

Assuming the content area you want to add the file to is shown, you should click on the link for that content area in the [Control Panel]. Next select the [Add Item] button on the toolbar. Enter a name for the item in the name field. Choose a color for the name and enter text you want to appear below the item name. In the Content Section click the [Browse] button to locate the file on your computer. In the “Name of Link to File” box, enter the name that users will see for the attached file and choose the “Create a link to this file” in the special action field. Under Options choose the appropriate options for content availability, tracking views and any date/time restrictions. Click the [Submit] button when you are done.

To minimize the number of problems your students encounter with accessing the files you should follow the tips for naming files. Additionally, you should use common file types, such as Microsoft Office documents, RTFs, PDFs, GIFs and JPEGs. File size should be kept to a minimum to ensure that documents are accessible by students on slower internet connections. If you are unable to reduce the file size, you should use the text box in the Add Item area to provide your students with information describing what the file is, how large the file is, and why it is important that they view the file. Providing your students with this information will let them know that they have to wait longer for the file to download.

Want more information?
Step-by-step instructions are available [PDF].
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418

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Published on 1 Comment on Bb Tip #6: Naming Files

You minimize of the number of error messages you and your students receive when accessing files in Blackboard by naming files appropriately.

Follow these steps to do it.
There are several characters that you should avoid when naming files to be used in Blackboard. To reduce the number of errors when uploading and downloading files in Blackboard, follow these naming conventions:

• Use only letters, numbers, underscores, and hyphens in file names
• Do not use spaces, commas, pound signs (#), question marks, equal signs, ampersands (&), asterisks (*), or any other special characters in file names
• Use hyphens or underscores in place of spaces in file names
• Do not use periods in a file name, except before the file extension (e.g. “Research_paper.doc”)
• Keep file names under 60 characters in length

Filenames should be less than 60 characters in order to avoid having the filename unexpectedly truncated when moving between different computer platforms (e.g. moving between Windows and Apple Macintosh computers).

Filenames should include the file type extension so they can be recognized and opened by the appropriate application on another computer. Common extensions are:

.doc or .docx for Microsoft Word documents
.xls or . xlsx for MS Excel files
.ppt or .pptx for MS Powerpoint files
.pdf for files in portable document format (PDF)
.jpg for JPEG images such as photographs
.txt for plain text files

You should recommend to your students that they follow these same naming conventions. This is helpful when you are downloading multiple students’ files all at once (e.g. downloading students’ completed assignments).

Want more information?
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418