BlackBoard Question of the Week

Q. I have posted a WMV file  in Blackboard that one of my students cannot access – she uses a Mac. Is there anything I can do to make it possible for her to view the video?

A. Macs cannot play Windows Media Videos, but there is a free media player called Flip4Mac WMV that your student can use to convert and view your video. You can find an ITS Technology Tip with  instructions for downloading the player at  http://blogs.luc.edu/techtips/2011/07/15/play-windows-media-files-on-your-mac/

Q. I would like to add a batch of users to my organization, rather than adding them one by one. Can I do that?

A. If you are a “leader” for the Blackboard organization you can use the My Organizations Plus tool to submit a “.txt” file of a list of students with the list of their UVIDs. 

Please visit this link Managing Organization Enrollment for a tutorial on how to use My Organizations Plus to enroll users, including how to enroll multiple users simultaneously.

Q. How can I print out the students’ grades and fit them on one page?

 A. There is no good way to do this from within Blackboard. But you can download the Grade Center, open it in Excel and then format in Excel for printing. You can download the entire Grade Center or specific columns, e.g., Total column or whichever column you are using for the final grade. 

For instructions on downloading your Grade Center please visit  Backing Up Grades .

Q. I have a Blackboard organization that I am now starting to manage, but I am having trouble uploading documents.  Can you help? 

A. You can use Blackboard Faculty Resources tutorials to learn how to manage your organization – they work the same way in both courses and organizations, except for managing enrollments. 

For help with uploading documents, visit Adding Files in Blackboard ; for help with managing enrollments, visit Blackboard Organizations/Communities and click on “Manage Organization Enrollment.”