Summer and Fall Courses in Blackboard

Your course areas in Blackboard for all online, hybrid, and seated summer classes are available to instructors and fall course shells will be accessible by instructors on Friday, May 2nd.  The following are reminders concerning Blackboard and information to keep in mind as you develop your courses.

Blackboard Update (Fall 2013)

On the weekend of Nov. 9th, Blackboard was updated to Blackboard 9.1 SP13.  There were 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 that update, including date management, please go to the following website.  Update Information

Publisher Content

We now have the Blackboard building blocks (integration) for four Publishers:  McGraw-Hill Connect (which we have had for a few semesters), Pearson MyLabs/Mastering, Cengage Learning MindLinks, and Wiley Plus.  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.

Before you can utilize these tools in your courses, you may need to enable them in your classes.  You do this through the Control Panel in your Blackboard course area.  From the Control Panel, click on Customization and then Tool Availability.  From the Tool Availability window, scroll down through the list of tools until you locate your publisher tools.  The first column (Available) and last column (Available in Content Area) need checks in them for your publisher tools to be accessible.  Once you add any checks that are needed by clicking in the boxes, scroll either up or down and click the submit button in the right corner of the page.

• Pearson MyLabs
• Cengage MindLinks
• McGraw-Hill
• Wiley Plus

Smarthinking

Smarthinking is an online tutoring service that Southside students have access to use.  This is integrated with our Blackboard system.   There is a link to Smarthinking, using this integration, on the SVCC tab in Blackboard and in the Student Help area of our course shells.  You can direct students to Smarthinking through either of these options, 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 do not 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. 


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 course shells, and there is information for students in the student help section.  Atomic Learning site is also accessible through the Atomic Learning module on the SVCC tab in Blackboard.

If you already have links to Atomic Learning videos that you created in a course prior to the Spring 2014 semester and you course copy that content into your summer 2014 or fall 2014 course area, you will need to update those video links using the Atomic Learning Blackboard tool that was introduced at the end of the fall 2013 semester. 

Guide to Using Atomic Learning Videos in your Blackboard Courses

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.

Modifying Course Availability

Student Enrollments and Instructor Student Accounts

Student enrollments within Blackboard will be activated on May 19th, so students should be "enrolled" in Blackboard course areas by the 20th. 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.

• 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.

Availability of Previous Courses

Don't forget to make courses from previous semesters unavailable to students (Spring and Summer 2010).

Since Fall 09 incompletes were wrapped up at the end of the Spring 10 semester, I am going to make all Fall 09 course areas in Blackboard unavailable tomorrow evening (August 19th) before the new semester officially begins. If for some reason your Fall 09 course(s) need(s) to remain available to students, please just let me know by 4:00 pm on the 19th. The Fall 09 courses, if left available, will be most problematic for students. They see fall and don't notice the year, and they think they are enrolled in the wrong course in Blackboard.

As far as your Spring or Summer 2010 course areas are concerned, instructions on modifying course availability can be found at the web address linked at the bottom of this posting. If you are hiding courses from your view on the SVCC and/or Teach tab, you will need to first go to either your SVCC or Teach tab within Blackboard and click on the circular icon (picture) in the upper right corner of your My Blackboard Courses module (box). It looks a little like a flower. That will allow you to manage the settings for that particular module, and display the courses from previous semester on your tab. (Hiding course on your display only hides them from your view, not your students.) Once you have done this, you will be able to enter that course area to make the course unavailable to students. I appreciate your help with this. Students get very confused when they see links to courses they are no longer enrolled in at Southside.

Modifying Course Availability

Course Availability and Blackboard Fall 2009 Courses

As you wrap up your Fall 2009 courses, don't forget to make these course areas on Blackboard unavailable to students.

There is only one way to do this, and those instructions have been included below. If you are hiding courses from your view on the SVCC and/or Teach tab, by clicking on the "pencil" icon (picture) and making selections to no longer display course names on your list...this is NOT making the course(s) unavailable. This only hides the course from your view. You need to make the course unavailable to students so they no longer have access to it on Blackboard.

If you have a 1 or 2 students who will need to continue to have access to your course through the Spring semester due to incompletes, I can make the course unavailable to all students but those 1 or 2 who need continued access. Just submit a ticket to Issuetrak stating what you need and make sure that you identify the course or courses (ex. ENG 241 A6) and the full names of the students who need to maintain access. https://southside.issuetrak.com/login.asp

Just remember that when those students are finished, you then need to make the course area unavailable.

Changing Course Availability
1. Go to https://my.vccs.edu/
2. Log-in
3. Click on "Blackboard" under the "My Tools" list.
4. Click on the course (listed on either your "Teach" tab or "SVCC" tab)
5. Click on the "Control Panel" option (from within the course)
6. Click "Settings" in the "Course Options" box
7. Click on "Course Availability"
8. Click "No" to make it unavailable to all students enrolled; Click "Yes" to make it available to all students enrolled
9. Click on "Submit"

Let me know if you have any questions, and I hope that you have a great holiday!!
(kelly.goscinski@southside.edu)

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.

Removing Students From Your Course In Blackboard

It is best to not remove students from your course area in Blackboard. When you remove a student, all information on that student's access and all submitted work, including discussion board postings, is removed as well.

Continue to check your class roster and compare this to your student enrollment in Blackboard. If students are dropped due to nonpayment, withdraw on their own, or if you administratively drop...you need to make the course unavailable to the individual students. They will no longer have access to the course, but if their enrollment status changes or if the student(s) file a complaint...all of the student's (students') statistical information and work is still there.

To Change Individual Student Course Access (Availability)

1. Go to your course in Blackboard
2. Go into the "Control Panel"
3. Click on "List/Modify Users"
4. Click on the "List All" tab
5. Click on "List All" button
6. Click on the "Properties" button to the right of the student's name
7. Scroll down to part 4 of the "Modify User Properties" window
8. Under "Available"...change this to "no" to make the course unavailable to that student; change this to "yes" if you wish to give access back to that student
9. Click "Submit" (Bottom Right)

Changing Course Availability in Blackboard

1. Go to https://my.vccs.edu/
2. Log-in
3. Click on "Blackboard" under the "My Tools" list.
4. Click on the course (listed on either your "Teach" tab or "SVCC" tab)
5. Click on the "Control Panel" option (from within the course)
6. Click "Settings" in the "Course Options" box
7. Click on "Course Availability"
8. Click "No" to make it unavailable to all students enrolled; Click "Yes" to make it available to all students enrolled
9. Click on "Submit"