Very Important For All SVCC Instructors
Course shells are in the process of being created for all cyber, hybrid, and seated Spring 2010 courses. Unless we encounter a problem, they should all be up with instructors enrolled by tomorrow morning (11/21/09). A new Blackboard/SIS integration tool was used to create all of these courses, and as new courses are added into SIS...the course shells will be created and instructors enrolled automatically. Courses are created based on the information in SIS every evening and morning. Instructor and student enrollments in these courses will be updated every morning based on SIS. Student enrollments for the Spring courses will not begin processing within Blackboard until the morning of the first day of the Spring semester.
Since we are using this new tool, it is important that you DO NOT MANUALLY ENROLL YOUR STUDENTS!!! By using this tool and letting it enroll your students, it can update your Blackboard enrollment every morning. If a student drops your class, then they will be deactivated in your course (this is different than simply making the course unavailable to them) the next morning. This means that they will no longer have access. You will not be able to see them in your course, but if they have posted assignments or commented on the discussion board, nothing is actually removed. You just can't see it. If someone is dropped for non-payment, the same rules apply and they will be deactivated. However if they do make their payment, they will then be reactivated the day after they are added back into SIS. You no longer have to keep comparing your enrollment list in SIS to your Blackboard enrollments. You should not be changing the availability of the course to individual students. This tool takes care of it for you, unless you manually enroll someone. The SIS/BB tool would still work with your other students, just not for those you enroll on your own.Now, you might be thinking this is great...but what is the downside. There is usually always at least one. : )
The primary downside that I see at this point is that we have lost some control over student access and enrollment in our courses. Where I see this causing a problem is with students who might be dropped from your course after the semester begins due to financial aid problems. Once they are dropped in SIS, they will then lose access to your course the next day. If it takes a while to resolve this issue...we then have a problem. Right now, the only way to reenable a students access before all is fixed in SIS, is by asking the VCCS to reactivate at the system level. To do this, you would have to let me know, and I would have to file a ticket with them. Even if they reactivate, it is only temporary. When SIS and Blackboard update the next morning....the students will once again be deactivated. The VCCS is currently working on an update that would allow me to temporarily reactivate if needed. Hopefully this update is right around the corner. Just remember, that beginning in January, if you need to see the grades or assignments of a student who has been deactivated, you will need to put the request in through Issuetrak for me to temporarily reactivate your student.
I think that this tool is a step in the right direction and will be a real time saver. You will no longer have to request for courses to be created or to have enrollments run. This should all be done automatically as long as your course is in SIS. When the courses are created, they will automatically be set to "unavailable", so even when the students are enrolled....they won't see your course until you change its availability. I will send out instructions on this later in December just in case you aren't sure how to do this.
Remember that there are always growing pains with a new tool, and although we tested this successfully with several courses this fall...there are always problems that we can't predict. Please be patient as we encounter these, and let me know if you have any questions. Remember that Blackboard Help requests can be submitted through Issuetrak, but that if you just have a question, feel free to call me or email me at kelly.goscinski@southside.edu.
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