BlackBoard Question of the Week

Q. I did a Course Copy and got an email that it is complete – but the course copy was a mistake. Can I undo?

A. You can’t undo a Course Copy, but you can go into the course you copied course materials to and quickly clean out that copied material using Bulk Delete. Here are the steps:

1. Go to the Control Panel of the course you want to remove the copied content from.
2. Under the Packages and Utilities heading, click on Bulk Delete. A message tells you that this action is final and cannot be undone.
3. Select the materials to remove.
4. Type Delete in the Confirmation box at the bottom of the page.
5. Click Submit.

Q. If I archive my classes, can I still access them? Where will they be stored? I’d rather have the gradebook and course materials stored all together, but I doubt that I will need access to these courses regularly.

A. If you use the Export option in Blackboard, you get a zip file of course materials without student records that you can store on your hard drive or portable flash drive for the purpose of importing into another course. With the Archive option you will get course materials and student records, but you have to request that option by emailing Blackboard@luc.edu. With both Archive and Export the data can only be viewed by restoring the course in Blackboard or importing into a new course.

We recommend that instructors routinely back-up the Grade center; when you use the “Download”option in the Grade center, you get an Excel file that can be viewed outside of Blackboard.

Check out these videos for Exporting Your Course, Importing Your Course, and Working Offline in the Grade Center, or our written tutorial on Backing Up Your Course Grades for more information.

Q. I set up a discussion in Blackboard for students to read some statements and post their reflections, but my students say they can’t post their replies.  What do I need to do?

A. Make sure that you have either set up a thread inside the forum for students to reply to or allowed students to create their own threads.  Also, allowing attachments in the forum will allow students to work on their replies outside Blackboard and then attach them to their posts.

To adjust the forum settings to allow students to create their own threads and to allow attachments:

1. Click on the chevron to the right of the forum name.
2. Select Edit.
3. On the Edit Forum page, click to put a checkmark in the boxes beside “Allow file attachments” and “Allow members to create new threads.”
4. Click Submit.

To add a thread:

1. Click on the name of the forum.
2. Click on the Create Thread button.
3. Add the subject of the thread and, in the Message box, add any information students will need to respond; you can add an attachment if you have more information.
4. Click Submit.

For more information for instructors on setting up and using a Discussion Board in Blackboard, please visit the tutorials under the Discussion Board heading on the Faculty Resources webpage.
Students can find videos on creating and replying to a discussion thread on the Student Resources under the Blackboard 9 Videos heading.