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Category: Blackboard Bits, Bytes, and Nibbles

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip # 8: Organizing Course Materials into Folders

Folders are useful for organizing and structuring content in a course Content Area. Folders are intended to hold collections of items. For example, you may add folders for each chapter or each week of the course to a content area. You can use folders to organize the content area by content-type (e.g. Assignments, Assessments, Group Projects, etc.). Once a Folder is created, you can add content and additional subfolders to it. All of the content types available in content areas may be added to a folder.

Follow these steps to do it.
From the [Control Panel] select the content area that you would like to create a folder in. Click on the [Add Folder] button on the tool bar. Enter a name for the folder. Choose the appropriate options for content availability, tracking views and any date/time restrictions, then click [Submit].

Note: Your course is created with default content areas. You can customize the course menu if you would like to add a folder to the course menu that is not listed by default. Refer to Bb tip #7 for instructions on customizing the course menu.

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 8 Comments on Bb Tip #7: Customizing the Course Menu

The Course Menu appears on the left side of a Course and contains links to materials and tools within the Course. All Blackboard courses are created with a default course menu (e.g. text links on a green background and default content areas.) You can structure your course menu to fit your needs. You can personalize your course menu with your own wording, order, colors and styles.

Follow these steps to do it.
From the [Control Panel] select [Manage Course Menu] under [Course Options]. You should see a list of the items that appear on your course menu. To reorder the items, click on the dropdown arrow and select the desired order. To remove an item from the course menu, click on the remove button for that item. To modify a course menu item, click on the modify button and make the changes on the update area page for that item. To add a new area in the course menu, click on the appropriate toolbar button (content area, tool link, course link, or external link) and follow the prompts.

You can change the color and style of the course menu by selecting [Course Design] under [Course Options] in the [Control Panel]. From the [Course Design] screen, select [Course Menu Design]. You will be able to choose buttons or text for your menu style. Both of these can be further customized on the Course Menu Design screen. Click [Submit] when you are done.

You can choose how users can view the course menu by selecting [Course Design] under [Course Options] in the [Control Panel]. From the [Course Design] screen, select [Manage Menu Display Options]. You can choose to make the quick view or detail view available as the default view. You also have the option of making both views available so that users can toggle between them. Click [Submit] when you are done.

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

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #5: 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.
Go to the [Control Panel] of the course in which has the content you want to copy. Click on the [Course Copy] link under the [Course Options]. Click on the [Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course] link.  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 the [Select] button. The [Destination Course ID] field will be filled in with the destination course you selected. 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. Click the [Submit] button when you are finished making your selections. 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

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Published on 1 Comment on Bb Tip #4: Export Course Content

Course content remains in Blackboard for three semesters before it is removed. This means, for example, courses created for the fall 2008 semester will not be removed until after the start of the spring 2010 semester. You should create an archive of your course before it is scheduled to be removed from the Blackboard system.
Note: The archive will not contain any student grade information. The student grade information should be downloaded separately. Refer to Bb tip #3 for instructions on exporting information from the Grade Center.

Follow these steps to do it.
To archive a course, click on the [Archive] link in the [Control Panel] of the course. Click the [Archive] button and then click on the Submit button. You will receive an email when the archive process has been completed. When you receive the confirmation email, go click on the [Archive] link once again and you will see a link where the archived file can be downloaded to your local computer. This process will create a backup of the course in a compressed zip format. This file can then be imported into another course. Do not modify or edit the contents of the compressed file as this may corrupt the archive.

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 2 Comments on Bb Tip #3: Export Gradebook

Student access to courses is removed two weeks after the end of a semester. During this process all gradebook 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 export the gradebook for a course, you should goto the [Control Panel] for that course and click on the [Grade Center] link. Inside the Grade Center you should point to the [Manage] 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 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 #2: Hide Old Courses from View

When you login to Blackboard you will see your courses for the previous two semesters listed along with the courses you are currently teaching on the Xavier University tab. If you do not want to see older courses in this list, you can hide them from view.

Follow these steps to do it.
To hide courses from view, click on the small pencil icon on top right corner of the [My Courses] section. For the courses to be hidden from view, make sure the check marks in the [Display Course Name] and [Display Announcements] columns are removed. This will hide the courses from view on the Xavier University tab but not remove them from the system.

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 #1: Recommended Browsers

Blackboard has a list of browsers that are certified or compatible with the version of Blackboard we use here at XU. To avoid problems with Blackboard you should use one of the recommended browsers.

Follow these steps.
If you are having problems using Blackboard, try using one of the recommended browsers. If using a recommended browser does not resolve your problem, you may be experiencing problems with Java. Blackboard uses Java for interactive features inside web the pages. Using an up-to-date version of Java you should reduce problems in using Blackboard.

The Java website will do a quick check of the version you are running and test whether it is working properly.

If you are having problems running Blackboard and you’re running an older version of Java, you should consider updating your Java version. The Java website provides free downloads of its latest version.

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