BlackBoard Question of the Week

Q. I would like to have students upload their Microsoft Word documents to my Blackboard course, and then have each of those documents distributed to each enrolled student. Is this an available option for students?

A. Although instructors can upload materials in many different areas on Blackboard, there are limited ways for students to do this. If you would like your students to upload documents to Blackboard so that other students can see them, the simplest way is to create a discussion forum.

Instructions  for creating a Discussion Forum Web | Video

Once the forum is created, add a starter thread in which you ask your students to reply and attach their Word documents. The result should be a series of attached documents with each student’s name. For the sake of clarity in the forum, you may want to prevent students from creating their own threads, which is an option in Forum Settings.

Instructions for creating a thread Web | Video

Q. Do grades need to be backed up by me? Or is that not usually a concern?

A. We recommend that instructors routinely back up the Grade Center.  Downloading the Grade Center to Microsoft Excel each time you enter new grades is a good way to maintain a backup of your Grade Center in case Blackboard becomes inaccessible. Excel also offers more complex mathematical functions than Blackboard’s Grade Center.

For complete instructions on how to back up your Grade Center, visit either of the following links: Web Instructions | Video Instructions

For more information on the Grade Center, visit the Grade Center portion of the Faculty Help Resources page.

Q. How can I set up a Blackboard discussion so that I receive an email when students post to a forum?

A. First you will need to set up your discussion so it is possible to subscribe.

1. Go to your course and click on Discussion Board in the menu on the left.
2. Click on the Modify button next to the forum and scroll down to Forum Settings on the Modify Forum page.
3. Beside Subscribe, select Allow Members to subscribe to forum or Allow members to subscribe to threads, and select whether the email notification will have the body of the post or only a link to the post.
4. Submit.

   Then, you will need to subscribe to the forum or thread:

1. Go to your course and click on Discussion Board in the menu on the left.
2. Click on the forum you want to subscribe to.
3. Click on the Subscribe button on the discussion toolbar.

4. You will see the message “Forum subscription successful.”

Q. For a couple of my assignments students have saved their work but either forgot to submit it, or didn’t know what the deadline was.  Is there any way I can view their saved assignments, or some way I can open up the assignments for only a few specific students so they can submit their material later?

A. There isn’t a way to view assignments that have not been submitted, but you can make the assignment available to only a few students so they can submit later. Here’s how:

1. Go to the content area with the assignment using the course menu.
2. Click the chevron next to the assignment and select Adaptive Release.
3. On the Adaptive Release page under Membership, browse for the student(s) you want to give access to.
4. Scroll down and click Submit.

Now the assignment will appear for the students you selected, but others will not see it.

Q. I would like to post links to journal articles in Blackboard. Can I do this directly or do I need to go through the library?

A. The process of adding a link in Blackboard is pretty straightforward: You can find text instructions here and video instructions here.

To find the link you need from the Library:

1. Find a link to Citation Linker at the bottom of the Library homepage http://libraries.luc.edu/ .
2. Fill out the form and, if the article is found, click on the link to the article on the Electronic Journals Search page.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and look for “Persistent link to this record.” (There are not always persistent links available.)
4. Select the persisent link, copy and paste into Blackboard.