BlackBoard Question of the Week

Q. I have uploaded my syllabus, but my students are saying they cannot see my course when they log into Blackboard. What should I do?

A. At the beginning of each semester, it’s important to remember to make your courses available — if you don’t, students cannot see their course titles on their “My Institution” page, even if they are registered for your course and their name appears on the roster. In order for students to see your course, you must manually make the course available in the course options settings in the Control Panel.

For instructions in both text and video on how to make your course available, visit Making Your Course Available .

Q. I am teaching a course this fall, and I created the Blackboard grade center today, placing the various exams, etc., in columns. However, I am unable to move the Total column to the place I wish, which is the last column.  Any advice for how to do this?

A. To move columns in the grade center, click on Manage > Column Organization. Find the table on the Organize Grade Center page that lists your Total column, and move your mouse to the first (shaded) column in that table — your cursor should turn to a double-headed arrow.

Click and drag the total column up or down and drop it where you want it. Then, you must click the Submit button in the lower right corner to complete the change.

Q. In Blackboard’s discussion board, is it possible to select and save all of a student’s posted documents at once, rather than do them one by one? 

A. You can collect all the posts by one student in a particular forum or in all forums in a course.

1. Click on a forum in which you want to collect posts for a particular student.
2. Click the Search button in the upper right corner.
3. Type the student’s first and last name in the Search box.
4. Under the Search box, select whether you are collecting posts for the current forum, the current discussion board, or all forums in the course.
5. Select the date range for the search.
6. Click the Go button to the right of the date boxes.
7. Select all of the posts and copy and paste them into a Word document.