BlackBoard Question of the Week

This is the last post for the Blackboard Question of the Week blog.

Thanks for reading our blog and we encourage you to check out the Sakai Question of the Week at http://blogs.luc.edu/sakai-qow/ as Loyola moves from the Blackboard Course Management System to the Sakai Collaborative Learning Environment.

Questions about Sakai? Email sakai@luc.edu.

Q. I recorded a lecture in Adobe Connect and told my students to access it by clicking on Tools in the course menu, clicking on “Adobe Connect Pro,” clicking on the chevron next to the meeting name and selecting View Information. They could then click the Recordings link and select the recording to play it. The problem is my students are not seeing the chevron icon to select View Information.

A. If your meeting and recording were created in Blackboard, any student who was enrolled and added to the meeting would see the link and the chevron. If you don’t add your students to the meeting when you create it, they will not see the meeting or the recording.  A solution for the future is to add your students to the meeting when you create it – then they can see the recording using the instructions you gave them.

For now, to allow your students to see the recording you have already done, you can make it public and then post a link to it in your Blackboard course.

1. Log into Connect.luc.edu.
2. Click on Meetings in the toolbar at the top of the page.
3. Click on the meeting whose recording you want to make public.
4. Click on the Recordings link in the toolbar just above the red bar.
5. Click in the box to the left of the recording you want to make public and select the Make Public button just above the red bar.
6. To get the link for your students, click on the name of the recording and copy the “URL for Viewing.”
7. Paste that URL into your Blackboard course.

Q. I commented on my students’ papers for a Turnitin assignment. Unfortunately, the students cannot see the comments I posted. Is there something else I need to do to help them see these comments?

A. There are two ways to comment on Turnitin Assignment submissions: Grademark in Turnitin and Grade Details in the Grade Center. In order for your students to view any comments you posted using GradeMark, students will need to go to the Turnitin Assignment, choose “View/Complete Assignment,” then select the View button.  You will be able to check which students accessed the graded paper by the names listed in the “Response” column in the Turnitin Assignments assignment inbox.

For students to see any comments you posted using Grade Details in the Grade Center, they should click on Tools in the course menu, then on My Grades and they will see your comments in the Comments column.

Q. I have embedded an IgNation video in Blackboard. It starts to play, then stops right away and I see the Pause button instead of the Play button. How can I play this video?

A. Videos in Blackboard may take a very long time to download, during which time you will see the Pause button. To speed up viewing of videos, instead of embedding, add a link to the video:

1. Go to the content area when you want to post the video.
2. Click the Build Content tab, then Create > URL.
3. Enter the name of the video and the URL.
4. Select Yes for Open in New Window.
5. Click Submit.

Q. Is there a way for me to export the names and email addresses of the student users in my course from Blackboard to Excel or anything else?

A. You can download your Grade Center to Excel and choose “User Information Only” as the information to download. That will download First Name, Last Name, and Username to Excel. Then, you could use an Excel function to add @luc.edu to the username, which gives you the email address. For a tutorial on downloading your Grade Center, please visit  Backing up Grades .

Q. I sent an email to my class through Blackboard – it looked fine when I sent it, but when I got the copy, it was garbled, with characters like <br> and &#39. What can I do to be sure students will not see those extra characters?

A. Please check your Groupwise email settings to see if you have selected plain text for viewing messages instead of html:

1. Open Groupwise.
2. Click on the little arrow to the left of Home at the top of the screen and select Tools > Options.
3. Double-click on Environment.
4. Click on the Views tab.
5. Look under Default Read view & Font at the bottom right. If “Plain Text” is selected, select “html” and click OK.

Q.  I have had my students turn in their papers through Blackboard, and have read and commented on them in MS Word, and then uploaded them back to the students along with their grade.  But I am not sure how to direct students to download their papers with my comments on them.  And how can I verify that my upload worked?

A. To confirm that your upload worked, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Grade Center in your course, find the column for the assignment, and click on the chevron in the cell for the student whose paper you want to confirm.
2. Click on View Grade Details.
3. Click on the View Attempt button in the lower right corner on the Grade Details page.
4. Scroll down to #3: Grade Current Attempt and look underneath the text box, at Attached files – you should see the commented file you attached for this student on this assignment.

Students can see their graded and commented papers either by going back to where the assignment is posted and clicking on it again to bring up the Review Submission History page, or by going to Tools > My Grades and clicking on the score for that assignment, which should be an active link if you have attached a document. Once a student is on the Review Submission page, s/he can view or download the document.

For instructions for students on how to submit and then review the grade for an assignment, please visit Submitting an Assignment .

Q. My professor makes highlights and notes on papers we submit online to Blackboard, but when he posts the document with his comments, I can’t see anything but his text at the bottom of the screen – his notes in bubbles and his highlights are missing. How can I see his comments?

A. Your professor is using the Track Changes Feature in Microsoft Word. If you have Word on your computer, you will need to download the paper to your computer and open it in Microsoft Word. Then, click on the Review tab, choose Show Markup and make sure there is a checkmark beside the options your professor is using.

Q. I created my Adobe Connect meeting in Blackboard, but edited it in Connect Central – now I can’t see my meeting in Blackboard.

A. Editing a meeting in Connect Central after it was created in Blackboard breaks the link between Blackboard and the Connect server. You will need to create a new meeting in Blackboard and do any editing of the meeting in Blackboard as well.

Q. Is there a way that I can limit access to a folder in my course to only a select group of students?

A. If you click on the chevron icon next to the folder you’ve created, you can select Adaptive Release.  In the Adaptive Release settings, under Membership, you have the option to add the usernames of those you would like to have access to the folder. This Blackboard video explains Adaptive Release rules:  Adaptive Release: Create Multiple Rules for a Content Item .

Or you could create groups and use the File Exchange area to make items available for specific groups.  Here is a link to a tutorial on creating groups:  Creating Student Groups .