BlackBoard Question of the Week

Q. Can you tell me if all of my courses will remain listed in Blackboard until I graduate?  I took a class in the summer of 2011 and now it is not listed there.

A. Courses from a previous semester are typically removed around the middle of the following semester; however an instructor may manually make the course unavailable sooner than that.  Students will be removed from Fall 2011 term courses on March 4, 2012, three days after the last day to submit assignments to change an “I” grade to a letter grade.  If you would like access to a course that is no longer available, you will need to contact the instructor.

For future reference, the date when students are automatically removed from the previous term’s classes is posted under the “Students” heading on the Blackboard Important Dates webpage.

Q. Is there a way to grade assignments anonymously in Blackboard? 

A. You can do this in Blackboard if you use the Assignment Tool to create the assignment. For anonymous grading, each student is assigned a number, such as Student 8, and attempts appear in random order.

Follow these steps to use anonymous grading:

1. In the control panel, under Grade Center, click on Full Grade Center.
2. Click the chevron beside the name of the assignment and select Grade Anonymously.
3. On the Grade Assignment page, grade the first student’s submission, then move to the next student using the Save and Next button in the upper right corner of the window.
4. After you grade the last student’s submission, click the Save and Exit button in the upper right corner.

If you choose Save and Exit before you are finished grading all of your students, when you return to complete grading anonymously, the remainder of the students in the class will have been assigned  new random numbers.

Q. Students are saying they can’t see my recorded lectures in Adobe Connect in Blackboard, even though I can see them. How do I fix this?

A. If you want your students to be able to enter the meeting space you are using to record, and have access to the recordings in the Adobe Connect area on Blackboard, you should add them all to that meeting space; you can do that by clicking the chevron to the right of the meeting name, selecting Edit, and then adding the students. You can find detailed instructions for this at Adobe Connect in Blackboard: Creating a Meeting .

To access recordings, students should:

1. Click on Tools in the Course Menu.
2. Click on Adobe Connect Pro.
3. Click on the chevron beside the name of the meeting and select Meeting Information.
4. Click on the active link Recordings.

NOTE: If students click on the name of the meeting itself instead of on the chevron, they will get a notice that the meeting cannot begin until the host  arrives; but there is no need for the instructor to be logged in for students to listen to the recordings.

If you don’t intend for students to use the meeting space, and you only want them to access the recorded lectures, you can make your recorded lectures public in Connect Central (http://connect.luc.edu) and then put the links to the lectures in Blackboard; you can find instructions for making your recordings public at Recording a Meeting .

Q. Previously, when I would click on a course, it would bring me to a page of that course with multiple tabs on the left hand side, such as Assignments, Content, Communication, Discussion Board. Now I’m not seeing any of those, so I can’t see any of my materials for any of my courses.

A. It sounds like you have accidentally hidden your course menu from view. To get it back, log into Blackboard and go to one of your courses. Then, follow the instructions at Recover Missing Course Menu .

Q. The link to “Content” has disappeared from the red menu bar on my home page. I can’t locate it, and can’t access my course content. What can I do to bring back my Content area?

A. You may have unintentionally deleted your Content area and that would have deleted all of the content you uploaded into it: the little chevrons on the right side of the red menu for each button give the option to rename, hide, or delete.

You will need to recreate the content area by adding a new content area in the menu and then reuploading your content into that new area. Please visit Customizing your Course Menu for instructions for creating a content area.

Q. I did a course copy, but I’m not seeing all the content from the course I am copying in the destination course. How can I fix this?

A. There is an issue with course copy since Loyola upgraded to Blackboard 9.1: The instructor receives an email saying the copy is complete before it really is complete. We recommend waiting at least 15 minutes after you receive the email before you go to the destination course. If you don’t see the content after that, you can try copying only the parts that didn’t come over in the first copy, or contact blackboard@luc.edu for assistance.

Q. I am a new adjunct and need Blackboard training – when will it be available?

A. Academic Technology Support currently offers Drop-in sessions each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at the Lakeshore campus; you can come by during these times to receive help with Blackboard without making an appointment:  http://www.luc.edu/blackboard/Dropin.shtml . You can also schedule an appointment outside of these times, by emailing Blackboard@luc.edu.

And you may also want to take a look at the Blackboard tutorials we have online to help get you started:  http://luc.edu/blackboard/Faculty_Resources.shtml

Q. In Blackboard, my Spring 2012 course has the wrong course name because it is cross-listed with another course. What can I do to fix this?

A. As the instructor in the cross-listed course, you have the option to have the course title (course name) to be listed as you wish.

Go into the Blackboard course, go to the Control Panel, click on Customization, then click on Properties.  Under item 1. Name and Description, you can change the Course Name, then click the Submit button.

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.