Blackboard Maintenance Completed at 3:20pm on 12/26/07
The Blackboard Maintenance Downtime started at midnight and the system was back up by 03:20pm on Wednesday, 12/26/07
The Blackboard Team
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The Blackboard Maintenance Downtime started at midnight and the system was back up by 03:20pm on Wednesday, 12/26/07
The Blackboard Team
Items covered in this blog entry:
• Blackboard will be unavailable all day December 26, 2007 (second notice)
• Please note a change if you “Merge” courses in Blackboard
• Blackboard Known Issue: Exporting Discussion Forums and Importing Forum into a copied/new course will cause a problem if you delete a Forum from the new/copied course, i.e. grades will be deleted from the ‘old’ course
Blackboard will be unavailable all day December 26, 2007
Please note that the Blackboard system will NOT be available all day (12:01am to 11:59pm) on Wednesday, December 26 2007.
Please note a change if you “Merge” courses in Blackboard
If you are teaching multiple sections of a course or a course is cross-listed and you would like to have the enrollments for all of the sections combined into a single Blackboard course perform steps below. If you want your students to show up in the combined course and the individual sections of a combined course perform steps below.
Step 1: In Bb, create the course that you want the other course rosters merged into. We are asking this semester that you create a course with a ‘section’ number that is not an existing section when you do the “Course Create” or “Course Copy” for the merged course. For example, if you want sections 001 and 002 merged into a single Section then create/copy the new course to Section XXX, where XXX is a section number that is not a valid VCU course section for the 2007 Spring semester. For example, if you want POLI-379-001 and 002 combined into POLI-379-ALL then copy/create POLI-379-ALL. If you need help with this step please contact Tiffany Mills (tamills@vcu.edu) or Jamillah Curtis (jpcurtis@vcu.edu).
Step 2: Once you have POLI-379-ALL created, send an email (blackboard@vcu.edu) or enter a Help Ticket (http://www.at.vcu.edu/helpdesk/) with the following information:
"Please combine sections 001, 002, 003 and 004 of PSYC-101 into the Blackboard course PSYC-101-XXX-2007Spring."
Or
“Please combine WMNS-101-001-2007Spring and INTL-101-001-2007Spring into the Blackboard course INTL-101-XXX-2007Spring”
It usually takes a business day for the roster to update after you have made your request for combined sections or cross-listings, and after you have created the course in Blackboard.
If you want your students to show up in a merged course and in the individual sections of a merged course do the following: Create (My Faculty Tools – Create a Course or Copy a Course) the individual courses and perform Steps 1 and 2 above. The rosters will update within 24 hours.
Friendly Reminder: When you create a course it is set to unavailable, so the students will not see the ‘individual’ course unless you make it available (Control Panel – Settings – Course Availability).
Blackboard Known Issue: Exporting Discussion Forums and Importing Forums into a copied/new course will cause a problem if you delete a Forum from the new/copied course, i.e. grades will be deleted from the ‘old’ course
If you copy a course and re-create the Discussion Forums there is not a problem.
If you export Discussion Forums, that are graded, and import them to a ‘new’ course, there is a potential for a problem. In the ‘new’ course if you delete a Discussion Forum that was imported it will delete the grades in the Bb gradebook associated with the Forum in the originating course (i.e. course where Discussion Forum was exported).
If you have any questions about any of the items in this email please email blackboard@vcu.edu .
Happy Holidays,
Blackboard Team
For further assistance contact:
Technology Services Help Desk Contact Information
Phone: 828-2227
Email: blackboard@vcu.edu
Help ticket: http://www.ts.vcu.edu/helpdesk/
Blackboard FAQ: http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/
Blackboard Faculty Blog: http://blog.vcu.edu/blackboardfaculty
Blackboard Training: http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/training/it/search.asp
(Enter keyword: Blackboard)
Information in this blog entry:
• Blackboard and quiz locks: Important information if using Bb Test feature during Finals
• Blackboard Assignment feature can be used in place of Bb Test feature if questions are all essay questions
• Courses that have been merged – How to separate them back into individual Bb courses for final gradebook purposes
• Blackboard Maintenance Schedule for the month of December 2007 (December 26 – Blackboard will be unavailable all day, Friday nights will not be used in December because of final schedule.)
• End-of-Semester Grading Procedure Changes (BANNER Notice)
Blackboard and quiz locks: Important information if using Bb Test feature for Finals (or anytime)
Problem:
During the 2007 Fall semester there have been an unusually high number of students and faculty reporting Blackboard quiz locks. For those of you do not use the Bb test feature, if a test locks and it does not have multiple attempts the faculty member has to unlock the test for the student to be able to take it again. The problem appears to be mostly experienced by students taking Bb test off campus.
Recommendations:
If using Blackboard Test feature for your final exam -
1. The instructor needs to be available via phone or email to unlock Bb test for the student. The Technology Service Help Desk for the Blackboard support staff cannot unlock quizzes.
2. Tell the student to NOT click on the “refresh” option in the browser while taking a Bb test. Hitting refresh will lock the test.
3. If at all possible, recommend the students take the Bb test on campus.
4. If you chose to use a scantron form, the results can be uploaded into the Bb gradebook. Request Blackboard file for results of scan. Instructions for uploading grades can be found at http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/index.php?action=artikel&cat=37&id=42&artlang=en&highlight=gradebook%20download.
5. If only giving a test with essay questions, use the Assignment feature and not the Bb test feature. See next bullet in this email for instructions on using the Bb assignment feature.
6. The problem seems to be experienced less often if “Force Completion” is not set. We are working with Bb to see if this is really an issue. If you are using the ‘timer’ on the quiz and the student has a problem they can usually get back in and the ‘timer’ will not stop. If “Force Completion” is set the student cannot restart the quiz if it hangs. With the ‘timer’ option set, if they get out and get back in, i.e. to look up something, the timer continues to run. You will see an “!” in the gradebook if the student used more than the allotted time.
7. Please note when you set the options for the quiz (Modify the Test Options), if you set the option under “Self Assessment Options” to “Hide the score of this test from the Gradebook”, the score for the quiz is only displayed to the student when they complete the quiz and is not saved anywhere. This option is only to be used for self-assessment, when the instructor does not want to see the results of the assessment. The only thing that will appear in the gradebook is an “!” to show the student took the quiz.
What is being done to correct the problem:
The Blackboard Team in Technology Services has been working with Blackboard (the company) to see if we have a Blackboard application problem. We have implemented all their recommendations for 'fine-tuning' the system. We continue to check the Blackboard logs and analyze them. VCU Technical support staff, at the University Computer Center, is monitoring the system to see if they can identify issues. We are working with VCU Networking to see if there are issues with network access to Blackboard. Changes have been made to the VCU network to enhance response time and overall performance of the network.
As always, the Blackboard user community has been patient and very helpful in trying to help trouble-shoot the test locking issue.
Blackboard Assignment feature can be used in place of Bb Test feature if questions are all essay questions
The assignment feature will let you type the Test questions in a text box and/or upload a document with the test questions. The student will upload a document with the answers via the assignment. The instructor will access the student’s uploaded document from the Bb gradebook. The assignment feature has the option to set a date/time restriction to access for the Assignment. Once the student has uploaded and submitted (vs. saved) the assignment they can not do it again, unless you allow them to by clearing the attempt.
Instructions for creating a Blackboard Assignment
a. Click on the Control Panel
b. Click on the Content Area (Course Documents, Assignments, etc.) where you would like to place the Final Exam questions
c. From the Select: drop-down menu (far right of screen) chose Assignment and Click GO
d. Complete the Form for the Final Assignment
e. Make sure to tell your students where the Final Assignment is located in the Bb course.
f. More detailed steps about the assignment feature can be found in the Blackboard FAQs: http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/ (search for Assignment) or http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/index.php?action=artikel&cat=20&id=28&artlang=en&highlight=assignment
If you would like to see how the assignment works from the student perspective and don’t have a Blackboard username with a role of Student, please email tamills@vcu.edu and request a “Bb username needed with Student role.” A username will be created and emailed to you that you can use to see what students see with the assignment feature and any portion of your Blackboard course.
Courses that have been merged – How to separate them back into individual Bb courses for final gradebook purposes if needed
If you have a Blackboard course that is a ‘merge’ of multiple sections of a course and would like to have the ‘individual’ sections with student enrollments, this can now be done. To do this, create the individual section of the course and within 24 hours the student enrollment will update in the ‘individual’ course. The students will also continue to update to the ‘merged’ course.
Remember that when you create a course it is set to unavailable, so the students will not see the ‘individual’ course unless you make it available (Control Panel – Settings – Course Availability).
Now that you have the ‘individual’ sections created in Blackboard and the student enrollment has updated you can download the grades from the ‘merged’ course and upload them to the individual sections. Only the grades for students enrolled in the course will be uploaded. To see how to download and upload grades go to http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/index.php?action=artikel&cat=37&id=42&artlang=en&highlight=download%20grades.
If you have any questions about this process please email blackboard@vcu.edu.
Blackboard Maintenance Schedule for the month of December 2007 (December 26 – Blackboard will be unavailable all day and Friday nights will not be used in December because of the final schedule.)
The second and fourth Fridays in December will NOT be used for blackboard maintenance. Please note that the system will NOT be available all day (12:01am to 11:59pm) on Wednesday, December 26 2007.
End-of-Semester Grading Procedure Changes (BANNER Notice)
This semester marks the first grading in the Banner system. There are significant changes that faculty members need to know. Overviews of the new grading procedures will be given in 30-minute intervals today, Dec. 3, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Student Commons Richmond Salons; Tuesday, Dec. 4, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Sanger Hall, Room 1-067, and from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Commons Theater; Wednesday, Dec. 5, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Sanger 1-044; Thursday, Dec. 6, from 9 a.m. to noon in the Richmond Salons; Tuesday, Dec. 11, from 9 a.m. to noon in Sanger 1-044; and Wednesday, Dec. 12, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Commons Theater. More information will be available in Banner eServices. Questions may be e-mailed to rar@vcu.edu.
If you enter your grades into Blackboard, it has been suggested by a faculty member that downloading the grades into an excel spreadsheet and printing the spreadsheet and working from it, made it easier to enter the grades into Banner. To see how to download the Bb gradebook go to http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/index.php?action=artikel&cat=37&id=42&artlang=en&highlight=download%20grades.
Regards,
Blackboard Team
For further assistance contact:
Technology Services Help Desk Contact Information
Phone: 828-2227
Email: blackboard@vcu.edu
Help ticket: http://www.ts.vcu.edu/helpdesk/
Blackboard FAQ: http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/
Blackboard Faculty Blog: http://blog.vcu.edu/blackboardfaculty
Blackboard Training: http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/training (Keyword = Blackboard)