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Category: Blackboard Bits, Bytes, and Nibbles

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #48: Where’s the Digital Dropbox?

The digital dropbox is not available in Blackboard Learn version 9.1. The digital dropbox was replaced with a more robust Assignment tool. The Assignment tool significantly improves file collection and exchange. Rather than having one large unorganized drop box, the Assignment Tool lets faculty create a secure location for students to submit work for each course assignment. Faculty use the Grade Center to monitor the submission process, to view and/or download submitted work, to compose and send confidential feedback to students, and to grade the assignment. Faculty can download all of a particular assignment’s student submitted files in a single zip file. In the download zip file, each student submitted file will be renamed automatically to include the assignment’s name, the student’s username, as well as the filename the student originally submitted.

Multiple options are available when creating an assignment:

  • Assignment Files - allows faculty to attach supplemental information
  • Assignment Availability - allows faculty to create assignments in advance
  • Date and Time Restrictions - allows faculty to decide when students can access the assignment
  • Individual or Group Assignments – allows faculty to choose who has access to assignment
  • Tracking Statistics - track the number of views and by whom

Want more information?
Getting Started with Assignments - instructors [PDF].
Submitting Assignments - students [Video].
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #47: Use Turnitin for Plagiarism Detection

Turnitin is a tool available in Blackboard that you can use to prevent plagiarism and provide feedback to students. With Turnitin you can check a student’s work for originality, have peer reviews of papers, and grade papers electronically.

OriginalityCheck - Ensures original work by checking submitted papers against 14 billion web pages, 150 million student papers and leading library databases and publications.

PeerMark - Engages students in the writing process by providing structured, anonymous feedback of other student's written work.

GradeMark - Saves time and improves feedback through online grading where standard and customized marks appear directly on the student's paper.

Turnitin can be used as an instructional tool to help improve the student writing cycle by preventing plagiarism and providing rich feedback to students.

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

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #46: Interactive Rubrics

The Rubrics tool in Bb Learn 9.1 Service Pack 6 is a new tool. It is not the same as the Rubrics tool you use with Turnitin. The new Rubrics tool lists evaluation criteria for an assignment and can be associated with any column in the Grade Center. Rubrics can help students organize their efforts to meet the requirements of an assignment. Instructors can use Rubrics to explain their evaluations to students.

Instructors can associate Rubrics when creating gradable content items, including Blogs, Journals, Wikis, Discussion Boards, Assignments, and short-answer, file-response, or essay questions in tests and pools. Rubrics can be associated with multiple items, and all associations can be viewed from the Rubrics tool. Multiple rubrics can be associated with an item. Instructors can choose to have the rubrics visible to students at any time, only after grading has been completed, or not shown to the students at all.

When creating a rubric, instructors can assign weights to categories, allowing the same rubric to be used across multiple items with different possible points. Rubrics can be imported and exported for use across courses.

Rubrics can be viewed from the Grade Center during the grading process. Instructors can interact with any associated rubric for grading in a grid or list view, and feedback can be typed for each criteria as well as the entire assessment. Grades calculated using rubrics can be overridden. When a rubric has been used for grading, a report is available to view the results of all content graded with that rubric.

Want more information?
Step-by-step instructions are available [HTML].
Creating a Rubric [Video].
Associating a Rubric with a gradable item [Video].
Grading with Rubrics [Video].
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 #45: Add a Course Banner

You can personalize your course by adding a banner to your course. A course banner is an image that appears at the top of the course entry point of your course.

Follow these steps to do it.
To add a banner click on [Customization] in the control panel to expand it. Then click on [Style]. In the Select Banner options, click the [Browse My Computer] button and navigate to the desired image on your computer. Select the desired image file and click [Open]. Click [Submit] when you are done.

NOTE: The recommended size for course banner images is 480 X 80 pixels (8 inches X 1.25 inch). You can create a course banner using PowerPoint. Step-by-step instructions are available.

Want more information?
Step-by-step instructions for adding a course banner are available [PDF].
Step-by-step instructions for creating banners using PowerPoint for Windows [PDF] and Mac [PDF] are available.
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #44: Are You Ready?

In the event of an emergency that disrupts the University’s ability to have classes on campus for an extended period of time, you can be ready to continue your classes online. Here are some things you can do to be prepared should the need arise.

  • Understanding and Building Your Course
    • Getting Started with Course Environment (Video) (PDF)
    • Getting Started with Course Content (PDF)
  • Utilize Blackboard’s Communication Tools
  • Collecting Student Work
    • Getting Started with Assignments (PDF)
  • Utilize Blackboard’s Collaboration Tools
    • Blogs, Wikis, Journals, & Discussion Boards Explained (PDF)
  • Posting Grades
    • Getting Started with the Grade Center (PDF)

Want more information?
Step-by-step instructions are available [PDFs] as well as
on-demand videos.
Signup for Blackboard workshops or request one-on-one help.
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or email or call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418

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Published on 7 Comments on Bb Tip #43: Merging Courses

Blackboard has a Section Merge Tool that allows faculty to combine two or more courses into a single course. Previously you had to request ITC merge courses for you. Now you can merge courses yourself.

Using the Section Merge Tool to combine courses can be useful when you are teaching multiple sections of the same course or when you are teaching a course that is cross-listed. Merging courses allows you to have all the students in a single Blackboard course which can be useful for collaborative work. Merging courses reduces the number of courses an instructor has to manage within Blackboard, especially when each section has identical content.

Once you’ve merged courses you can upload your course content and assignments into the merged course; communicate with the students in the merged course; setup collaborative course work; and have one gradebook for the merged course. You can create groups within your merged course that correspond to the original course sections. This way you can target a particular course section (group) of students for specific things (e.g. send email to a specific group, make content available to specific group, enter/view gradebook entries for a specific group, etc.)

NOTE: Merging of courses is typically done at the start of the semester before content is added and before students submit course work. You should wait to merge courses if there is a possibility that there will be last minute changes to instructor course section assignments. You should carefully consider whether merging courses is right for you. Some disadvantages to merging courses are:

  • Course enrollments for the merged courses will be combined which can make grading student work a challenge. You can use smartviews to make grading easier.
  • If you decide you want to unmerge courses after students have submitted course work, student work and grades will be lost. Only student enrollments are retained when you unmerge courses.

Follow these steps to do it.
In order to merge courses you must be listed as the instructor for each of the courses. Login to Blackboard and click on the [Section Merge] tab. Click on [Click Here to Create and Manage Merged Courses] on the Section Merge Tool page. Click on [Setup New Merged Course] on the Manage Merged Courses page. Carefully select ALL courses you want to be merged (combined) from the list and click [Submit]. On the Select Existing Course page, select the course you want to be the merged (combined) course (i.e. the course where you want all enrolled students to be and where you want to upload course contents). Click [Submit]. You should see a green confirmation bar indicating the merge was successful. Only the merged course name will appear in the list of courses for both the instructor and enrolled students. 

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 3 Comments on Bb Tip #42: Copy Content into Another Course

You do not have to start from scratch when creating content for your course. If you created content in one course you can copy that content into another course. For example, if you are teaching multiple sections of a course, you can create all the content in one course section and then copy the content into the other sections. Copying course content is particularly useful at the start of a semester as it allows you to copy content from a previous semester to a newly created empty course. Course content for the previous three semesters will remain in Blackboard before it is removed.

Follow these steps to do it.

  1. Go to the [Control Panel] of the course in which has the content you want to copy.
  2. Click on [Packages and Utilities] to expand it and then select [Course Copy].
  3. Choose [Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course] for the Select Copy type.
  4. Click on the [Browse…] button next to the [Destination Course ID] field. This will bring up a window containing a list of all available courses. Select the appropriate destination course from the list by clicking on appropriate radio button for the destination course and then click [Submit]. The [Destination Course ID] field will be filled in with the destination course you selected.
  5. Choose which portions of the course will be copied by clicking on the appropriate content section(s). You can select other course materials like [Announcements], [Grade Center Columns and Settings], [Staff Information], and [Tests, Surveys, and Pools] to copy as well by selecting the appropriate boxes for the items you want to copy.
  6. Use Manage Package Contents to choose which course files to include in the copy.
  7. Click the [Submit] button when you are done. You should receive a message telling you that the course copy has been queued and that you will get an email when the process is complete.

Note: Double-check to make sure the correct destination course is selected. There is no way to reverse this process once the wrong course is selected and the copy request is submitted.

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

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #41: Download Your Gradebook

Student access to courses is removed two weeks after the end of a semester. During this process all grade book records are deleted. You should download your gradebook to your local computer after you submit your final grades.

Follow these steps to do it.
In order to download (export) the gradebook for a course, you should goto the [Control Panel] for that course and click on the [Grade Center] link to expand it. Click on [Full Grade Center]. Once you are inside the Grade Center you should move your mouse over the [Work Offline] button on the menu bar and then click on the [Download] link. Under [Data] section, select the [Full Grade Center] option, under the [Options] section, select [Tab] as the delimiter type and [Yes] to include hidden information. In the [Save Location] section, choose [My Computer] and then click on the [Submit] button at the bottom of the page. On the next page click on the [Download] button. You should get a dialog box with a request to save the file. Save the file to a location where you can find it later. The file you saved can be opened with Microsoft Excel.

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

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #40: Change Course List Order

When you login to Blackboard you will see your course list. You can change the order your courses are listed as well as hide courses from view. To change the order of your course list follow the steps below. Refer to Bb tip # 36 to hide courses from view.

Follow these steps to do it.
To change the course list order, click on the small manage my course module settings icon located on top right corner of the [My Courses] section. Using the arrows on the left of the course name, click and drag the course to the new position. Click [Submit] to save the changes.

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 4 Comments on Bb Tip #39: Announcements

Announcements provide timely information for your students about class activities. Announcements are the ideal way to post time-sensitive material. The announcement area can be used to remind students of assignment and/or test dates, post changes to the course, announce upcoming events (such as a guest speaker), etc. You may direct students to a particular section of your course from an announcement. You also have the option to broadcast announcements to your students' email. You may create multiple announcements when setting up your course and time them to be released separately by choosing staggered future display dates. For example, you know now that you want to post an announcement about the midterm exam and another about the final. Create both announcements now, but set the midterm announcement to display the week before the midterm and the final exam announcement to display a week before the final. Students will not be able to view either announcement until their assigned display dates.

Follow these steps to do it.
To create an announcement, go to the [Control Panel] of the course in question. The Control Panel is located under the Course Management menu. Click on the [Course Tools] link to expand it. Click on [Announcements] and then click the [Create Announcement] button. Type a subject and message for your announcement. Select the duration/date restrictions for the announcement. If you want to email the announcement to the students in the course, you should check the box next to [Override User Notification Settings]. Click [Submit].

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