BlackBoard Question of the Week

Q. Is there any way to print reports of grades with all the students on the same page, as opposed to each student occupying an entire page?

A. In its Grade Center Reports function, Blackboard always inserts a page break between students. But you could create your own report by downloading selected Grade Center columns to a tab-delimited Excel file. Then, select the area of the spreadsheet that is being used and print the selection from Excel.

Downloading the Grade Center: Text instructions and Blackboard video.

Q. When I post an announcement to Blackboard and click the box to also send the announcement as email, that email has embedded in it an extra character: a capital A with an accent mark above it. Is there a way to prevent this?

A. When you type two adjacent spaces in a Blackboard announcement that you send as an email, you get that extra character. You can use the Enter key without getting the character, but avoid typing two spaces in a row.

Q. Is there a way I can allow students to see the originality reports for their Turnitin assignments?

A. You can allow student access to originality reports when you set up of your Turnitin assignment.  Here’s how:

1. Click the More options button at the bottom of the New Assignment page in Turnitin.
2. Choose the “yes” radio button beside “Allow students to see Originality Reports.”
3. Click Submit.

To view the report, the student should go to where the assignment was posted on Blackboard and click on the View/Complete link. Links to the original assignment and to the submitted paper will appear and, on the right side of the screen, under Contents, is a link with the percentage of the paper that was found to be unoriginal. The student clicks on the percentage to see the complete originality report.

Learn more about Turnitin assignments.