Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Summer 08 Courses To Be Removed From Blackboard

The VCCS has marked all Blackboard Summer 08 courses (SU08) for archival, and they will be removed from the Blackboard "production" area on August 5th. Blackboard is, of course, not designed as a permanent storage area for course materials. Keeping old courses can negatively impact the overall performance of the system and needs to be cleaned-up periodically. All archived courses will be available through the VCCS for about 1 year after they are removed from Blackboard.

If you have taught online, login to your "MySVCC" page and click on "Blackboard" to see which courses you are enrolled in as an instructor. You will need to click on the "pencil" icon found on the upper right corner of your "My Blackboard Courses" module. This will allow you to see all courses that you have taught that are currently in Blackboard, even if you have chosen to not have them displayed in your "My Blackboard Courses" module.You may want to export content from your SU08 courses and save the zipped files on your computer for future use.

Directions to Export Course Content
1. Go to the "Control Panel" within your course.
2. Click on "Export Course" within the "Course Options" box.
3. Click "Export" again.
4. Select all materials you wish to export...including "Grade Center Columns and Settings".
5. Click "Submit".
6. When you receive an email confirmation that this has been processed, go back to "Export Course", you should see the zipped file with your content. Click on the zipped file and save to your computer or flash drive.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

End of Summer Sessions and Blackboard

It is almost the end of the summer session. There are a couple of things that will need to be done soon or after the end of your session.

  1. If you taught a cyber course during any of the summer sessions and have not posted an announcement concerning completing the online course evaluation, please do so ASAP!! There is a button located on the course menu that will direct students to the evaluation. Please place a permanent announcement in your course asking students to click on that button to complete the online survey of the course.
  2. Once the summer session is completed, please make the course area in Blackboard unavailable to students. Click here to view instructions on how to alter course availability.