BlackBoard Question of the Week

Q. I hear that the Digital Drop Box is going away.  How can my students submit their work in Blackboard without the Drop Box?

A. Blackboard is replacing the digital drop box with the Assignment Tool in the upgrade to Blackboard 9.1 which will take place at Loyola in May 2011. To help you adjust to the use of the Assignment Tool, Loyola will be shutting off the Digital Drop Box on January 1, 2011.

There are several ways you can get one-on-one help learning the Assignment Tool, to prepare for this change:

• Blackboard Drop-in at Klarchek Information Commons, Room 224, every Wednesday from 10:00 am to noon, starting January 12, 2011
• Teaching with Technology Clinics – email Blackboard@luc.edu to schedule a session
• Online tutorial on the Assignment Tool  

Please contact Blackboard@luc.edu if you have questions or concerns.

Q. I sent a document to my professor using the digital dropbox, but she did not receive it. Please let me know if there is a issue with the dropbox, as I will have to use it again in the near future.

A. If you use the Add button in the digital drop box, you add the file to your drop box only. Your instructor will not receive the file until you click on the Send button, which adds it to your instructor’s digital drop box. Or, you can just click the Send button to do both steps together and send the file to both yours and your instructor’s digital drop boxes.

If you are sure you clicked the Send button, and your instructor still cannot see your file, make sure your filename does not use special characters, such as a period or pound sign (#); anything other than A-Z. a-z, or 0-9 is a special character. If your filename has a special character in it, you will need to rename the file on your computer and resubmit to the digital drop box.

Visit this link for more information for students regarding how to use the Digital Dropbox in Blackboard: Digital Drop Box.

Q. I am trying to set up digital dropboxes for several different assignments for my students. However, whenever I go into the dropbox page on blackboard, there is no option to create a folder for students to submit their work. How do I go about creating folders where students can turn assignments in?

 A. The digital dropbox is a very basic file exchange tool and there isn’t a way to set up folders for students or for particular assignments.

 There is a better tool for this purpose in Blackboard called the Assignment tool. This tool will set up a separate link for each assignment you create, and students will go to a particular link to submit their papers as attachments. A column is automatically added to the Grade Center, and grading of assignments is done there. It is possible to download all assignments at once for grading offline.

Visit these links for instructions on how to set up and grade an assignment Webpage | Flash video 

Q. My students tell me they are submitting assignments, but sometimes I get an “HTTP 404″ error when I click on the filename.  What does this mean, and how can I view these student assignments?

 A. Files submitted on Blackboard should have names that include only alphanumeric characters, hyphen, and underscore. If your students use other characters in their filenames, it is possible that you will not be able to view or open their files.

The solution is for students to rename their files without special characters and then resubmit their assignments.

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. Open the content area with the assignment from the Control Panel.
2. Select Manage next to the assignment.
3. Select Adaptive Release.
4. On the Adaptive Release page under Membership, browse for the student(s) you want to give access to.
5. Scroll down and click Submit.

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