It is time for some housekeeping in Blackboard. As you may have already noticed, Fall 2012 course areas in Blackboard have been identified and marked for removal on December 5th. Although the VCCS does maintain an archive of your courses, it is recommended that you maintain a copy of your course by exporting the course content.
All archived courses will be available through the VCCS for about 2
years after they are removed from Blackboard. You should also
download a copy of your grade center from Blackboard for each course
as back-up as well, if you have not done so already. (Downloading and Uploading from the Grade Center--Video Tutorial)
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.
From your SVCC tab or Teach tab, you will need to mouse-over the "My Blackboard Courses" module and click on the
circular icon (looks similar to a gear) found on the upper right
corner of that area. 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 display on your tab. The criteria for removal at this stage is:
1. Course ID's ending in "FA12"
2. OR created before August 1, 2012
You should export content from any courses planned for removal AND save the zipped files on your computer for future use. (These file are not stored in Blackboard.)
Click
on the link below and scroll down to the section called "Course
Management and Navigation". From there you will find instructions on
exporting course content. You can either view the instructions or
download to save or print.
Blackboard Instructional Handouts
Friday, November 22, 2013
Monday, November 18, 2013
Spring 2014 Blackboard Course Shells Available
Your course areas in Blackboard for all online, hybrid, and seated
summer classes are available to instructors. The following are
reminders concerning Blackboard and information to keep in mind as you
develop your courses.
Recent Blackboard Update
On the weekend of Nov. 9th, Blackboard was updated to Blackboard 9.1 SP13. There are some great new features and updates to existing features, including a new date management tool. If you are copying content from a course shell for a previous semester, this new date management tool is a great option to update the availability dates for items in your course and due dates.
To review the primary additions from the update, including date management, please go to the following website. Update Information
Publisher Content
We now have the Blackboard building blocks (integration) for three Publishers: McGraw-Hill Connect (which we have had for a few semesters), Pearson MyLabs/Mastering, and Cengage Learning MindLinks. If you are using any of these Publisher tools, you can now integrate your content and grades into your Blackboard course areas. Information is linked below for using these integrations. When you go to one of the links, review the information on the resources tab.
Smarthinking
Smarthinking is an online tutoring service that Southside students have access to use. This is not a new service, but it is now integrated with our Blackboard system. There is a link to Smarthinking, using this new integration, in the Student Help area of our Spring 2014 course shells. For the Spring 2014 semester, students can only access Smarthinking through a Blackboard course shell. You can direct students to Smarthinking in the student help section, or you can use the Smarthinking tool in Blackboard to make a link to this resource on your course menu or from within any content area (for ex. assignments). Students will no longer have to create a Smarthinking account. By accessing Smarthinking through the Blackboard integration, an account is set-up based on their Blackboard account and they are automatically signed in.
A guide will be developed on how to create the Smarthinking links in your courses.
Atomic Learning
Course Availability
Instructors are to make course areas available by 8:00 AM on the day that the session begins. Make sure that your content is ready to go and course is available to students on time.
Student Enrollments and Instructor Student Accounts
Student enrollments within Blackboard will be activated on December 18th, so students should be enrolled in course areas by the 19th. They will not have access to your course areas until you make the areas available within Blackboard at the start of your session.
Remember that your instructor student accounts are automatically enrolled in all course shells (as students). Guide to Using Your Student Account
Requirements
Requirements for Online Classes
Training/User Guides
Blackboard User Guides
Export and Import Course Content or Course Copy
You can copy your content from one course to another by using either "Course Copy" or "Export/Import". Neither option seems to be a perfect solution, so remember to always gives yourself time to review the copied content. Export/Import does give you a back-up copy of your content saved to either your computer or other storage device, and Blackboard reps have stated that this is a more reliable process, especially if you have a lot of content. At Southside, however, we have seen some problems when using export/import related to copying tests in Blackboard, so please be aware of that.
Whatever method you choose, do this sooner rather than later. Don't leave copying content until the week before classes begin, or even worse, the day that classes begin. Give yourself plenty of time to review and update your content. I know that sometimes classes are added at the last minute, and nothing can be done about those situations, but for classes that are on the schedule now...go ahead and complete this step early.
If you course copy or use Export/Import to copy content from a previous course(s) into a new course shell in Blackboard or if you use a publisher cartridge, you may unintentionally bring over additional buttons that you don't need. You shouldn't have duplicate buttons on your course menu. Please either remove those or make them unavailable to students. (See the Blackboard Training Materials below.) Here are some tips to keep in mind before you begin this copy process.
Recent Blackboard Update
On the weekend of Nov. 9th, Blackboard was updated to Blackboard 9.1 SP13. There are some great new features and updates to existing features, including a new date management tool. If you are copying content from a course shell for a previous semester, this new date management tool is a great option to update the availability dates for items in your course and due dates.
To review the primary additions from the update, including date management, please go to the following website. Update Information
Publisher Content
We now have the Blackboard building blocks (integration) for three Publishers: McGraw-Hill Connect (which we have had for a few semesters), Pearson MyLabs/Mastering, and Cengage Learning MindLinks. If you are using any of these Publisher tools, you can now integrate your content and grades into your Blackboard course areas. Information is linked below for using these integrations. When you go to one of the links, review the information on the resources tab.
Smarthinking
Smarthinking is an online tutoring service that Southside students have access to use. This is not a new service, but it is now integrated with our Blackboard system. There is a link to Smarthinking, using this new integration, in the Student Help area of our Spring 2014 course shells. For the Spring 2014 semester, students can only access Smarthinking through a Blackboard course shell. You can direct students to Smarthinking in the student help section, or you can use the Smarthinking tool in Blackboard to make a link to this resource on your course menu or from within any content area (for ex. assignments). Students will no longer have to create a Smarthinking account. By accessing Smarthinking through the Blackboard integration, an account is set-up based on their Blackboard account and they are automatically signed in.
A guide will be developed on how to create the Smarthinking links in your courses.
Atomic Learning
Atomic Learning provides thousands of short, easy-to-understand tutorial movies and a library of curriculum resources, including tutorials on Gmail, Google Docs, Microsoft Word, etc. This is not a new resource for Southside, but it is now integrated into our Blackboard System. This will allow you to easily add links to videos on various topics within your course(s). For example, if you have a project in which students must create a PowerPoint slideshow, add links to PowerPoint tutorials for your students to view before completing the project. There are even videos on using graphing calculators for those math instructors. : )
There is information on this resource and how to integrate the videos into your courses in the instructor resources section of all Blackboard Spring 2014 course shells, and there is information for students in the student help section. The Atomic Learning module on the SVCC tab in Blackboard will be updated at the end of the semester, and the Atomic Learning site will continue to be accessible through that module.
If you already have links to Atomic Learning videos, you will need to update those in your Spring 2014 course shells using this new integration tool. Your videos in your current courses will work until the end of the semester, but at the end of the semester we will completely switch to this new integration and old links to videos will no longer be valid.
Here is a link to information and a video on this integration. Atomic Learning and Blackboard
There will also be a training on the new integration on the following dates.
- November 19th 3:00 - 4:15 Rm 22 Keysville
- November 20th 12:00 - 1:15 Rm B9 Alberta
Course Availability
Instructors are to make course areas available by 8:00 AM on the day that the session begins. Make sure that your content is ready to go and course is available to students on time.
Student Enrollments and Instructor Student Accounts
Student enrollments within Blackboard will be activated on December 18th, so students should be enrolled in course areas by the 19th. They will not have access to your course areas until you make the areas available within Blackboard at the start of your session.
Remember that your instructor student accounts are automatically enrolled in all course shells (as students). Guide to Using Your Student Account
Requirements
Requirements for Online Classes
Training/User Guides
Blackboard User Guides
Export and Import Course Content or Course Copy
You can copy your content from one course to another by using either "Course Copy" or "Export/Import". Neither option seems to be a perfect solution, so remember to always gives yourself time to review the copied content. Export/Import does give you a back-up copy of your content saved to either your computer or other storage device, and Blackboard reps have stated that this is a more reliable process, especially if you have a lot of content. At Southside, however, we have seen some problems when using export/import related to copying tests in Blackboard, so please be aware of that.
Whatever method you choose, do this sooner rather than later. Don't leave copying content until the week before classes begin, or even worse, the day that classes begin. Give yourself plenty of time to review and update your content. I know that sometimes classes are added at the last minute, and nothing can be done about those situations, but for classes that are on the schedule now...go ahead and complete this step early.
If you course copy or use Export/Import to copy content from a previous course(s) into a new course shell in Blackboard or if you use a publisher cartridge, you may unintentionally bring over additional buttons that you don't need. You shouldn't have duplicate buttons on your course menu. Please either remove those or make them unavailable to students. (See the Blackboard Training Materials below.) Here are some tips to keep in mind before you begin this copy process.
- Review these handouts on export/import if you plan to use this process to copy content. Exporting Content and Importing Content
- Review this handout on course copy if you plan to go this route.
- Be prepared to wait. When copying content, it might take a few minutes, a few hours, or even over a day for your course to copy. The course copy process should not be run more than once. If a course copy takes more than a 24 hours and you still do not see your content, submit a ticket to Issuetrak to have this checked, but do not start it again. If you do, you could end up with multiple copies of your course content and deleting the duplicate content will take you quite a bit of time.
- Select "Grade Center Columns and Settings" during course copy and export/import if you utilize tests in Blackboard, the Assignment feature that allows students to upload work into BB, or the grading option with discussion boards, wikis, journals, or blogs. If you want your grade center columns to copy over or if you have anything linked to the Grade Center, this must be selected during course copy or export/import. This DOES NOT bring over your students' names or grades from a previous semester.
- No matter what process you decide to use, if you copy content, review it carefully after the process is completed. Correct dates, modify content, and reorganize as needed. Within the assignments area, you will have more that one SmarterMeasure assignment due to the copy. Keep only one. This is the updated item that was in our template. Also, if you have two "Student Grades" buttons on your course menu, get rid of one. (See the template information below.)
- DO NOT include the "Instructor Resources", "Course Evaluation", or "Student Help" content areas in the course copy or export. These areas are set-up in our course shell template that we use to create all course areas in Blackboard. If you include these in the copy, you are going to end up with duplicate content that will need to be deleted.
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