BlackBoard Question of the Week

Q. I was just informed that I will be teaching a course this fall that someone else taught last fall. Is it  possible to copy all of the materials that are uploaded on her Blackboard into my Blackboard?  

A. You should ask the previous instructor if you can use her materials; then ask her to email Blackboard@luc.edu and request that you be enrolled in her course as “course builder” so that you can copy the material into your course.

If there are only a few individual files to copy to your new course, you can copy individual items instead of copying a whole section of a course. To copy a single item, click on the chevron beside the item to be copied and select Copy. You will then be asked for the destination course and folder. You can find detailed instructions at Moving/Copying an Item or Folder  .

If you want to copy more than a few files, and if they are all in the same content area, you might find Course Copy to be the best way to copy the files. You can find instructions at Course Copy .

Q. I understand the University is moving to Microsoft Office 2010. Will I be able to post Office 2010 files in Blackboard, and will my students be able to read them?

 A. You will use the exact same process to upload an Office 2010 file in Blackboard as you have for Office 2003 or Office 2007 files, and your students should be able to read those files in those earlier versions of Office. Likewise, if you upload a file created in Office 2003 or Office 2007, your students with Office 2010 should have no trouble opening or downloading the document.

 You can find instructions for uploading files at Post Files to a Content Area .

 Q. I heard the University is moving to Windows 7. Will Blackboard continue to work in this environment?

 A. Yes, since Blackboard is Web-based you can get to Blackboard on any computer that is connected to the Internet.

But you may need to review the browser you use in Windows 7. Browsers that are recommended for Windows 7 (64-bit) for our version of Blackboard as of August 15, 2011, are: 

• Mozilla Firefox (Version 3.6x) **Recommended for best performance**
• Internet Explorer (Versions: IE 8, IE 9)
• All newer stable versions of Chrome

Q. Outside of my browser’s back arrow, I haven’t found a way to get back to the Home Page after I go to “more calendar events” on the calendar module. Is there a better way?

A. In other modules in the Home page, such as “My Announcements,” the course menu stays intact, so you could click back to another course area.  However, the “My Calendar” module fills up the whole Blackboard page and doesn’t provide another option to the back button to return to the course page.