Exporting Your Course in Blackboard

 

How often do you hear from a student that they cannot hand in an assignment because their computer crashed and they lost the file?  Have you ever asked if they backed up the file?  Now, have you ever asked that of yourself and your course work?

Backing up your course material offers many benefits including allowing you to:

• Add material in another Course in Blackboard
• Copy your course into another school’s version of Blackboard
• Move the content and course into another Learning Management System, such as Desire 2 Learn (D2L)

It is also best practice to back-up your data – be it on your personal computer or your courses in an LMS.

You can choose to “archive’ your course, but this will include all the student information and posts.  If you only want to have a copy of the content of your course to save and take with you, you will need to export it and save the “package”.  To do this:

1. Select Packages and Utilities on the menu
2. Select Export/Archive Course
3. Select the Export Package grey button. 
4. Under “Select Course Material” choose “Select All”
1. Naturally, if you want to save only a portion, you can select what you want.
2. But be sure to choose the “Include only the forum, with no starter posts” option for discussions
5. Select “Submit” (you are almost done)
6. Wait…. The LMS is working.
7. After a couple minutes (you may have to refresh the screen), you will see your file as a link on the Export/Archive Course page.  This will be a zip file
8. Select the Zip file and download it. This is the Course Package.
9. Save the Course Package, the Zip File, in a location that you can find.  You may want to rename the Course Package to something meaningful for you to understand.

That is it! 

Please note: DO NOT UNZIP the file.  Unzipping the file may corrupt your package.  Leave it untouched until you need it.  Then move the content to another course or LMS, such as D2L.

 
When you are ready to move the course into an LMS, you will just go into that course, use the Import Tool, and select this Course Package.

Follow these easy steps and you will be able to move your course, content and all, to most every modern Learning Management System (Yes, that includes D2L).

Recorded Webinars - Instructional Technology

Are you moving to virtual learning during the pandemic or want to improve you online presence?  If you are like most teachers, you are pressed for time and attending training or webinars are not a viable option. Luckily, most webinars can be recorded. 

Below are recorded webinars on Blackboard training and other instructional technology that you can access on your own time:

Advice:  Selecting fullscreen allows for better viewing (see far right corner).  You can also download this presentation in PDF format.  Be sure to select the links to launch the recorded webinar.

Missing Menus in Blackboard

You sign into Blackboard and you discover that the menu is missing.  You can only see the homepage.  All your content seems to be missing.  

Don't panic. 

The menu is only hidden.  In Blackboard, if you mouse-over the divider line separating the content and the menu, you will see an arrow.  This hides the menu to offer more space to show the content. You can unhide the menu, by mousing-over the side of the window and selecting the expand arrow.  In two shakes of a lamb’s tail, the menu re-appears. 

The hidden menu occasionally occurs in Windows 10, but can occur in other operating systems, and is sometimes browser dependent.  

Tip:  If an embedded video does not play, sometimes it requires more screen real estate for the play function to trigger.  Try hiding the menu, and then try the playing the embedded video.

Importing a Course File (Package) into Blackboard

 

Let’s say you want to transfer content from someone else’s course or use the SUNY Schenectady Course Model to help develop your course.  First you will get the file (called a package) that you want to import.  For this example, let’s pretend you want the course model, found conveniently at:  https://tinyurl.com/CourseModel.  

To save this file:

1. Go to the URL
2.  Select the button to download the file.
3. Save the ZIP file in a location you can find.
4. DO NOT unzip this file – just save it!

Now that you have the file, you are ready to import it.

 Importing the File (Package)

Go to the course you want to content to be imported and:

1. Select the Packages and Utilities option on the menu
2. Select Import Package (Do NOT chose Import Course Cartridge)
3. Select Import Package (the gray button that looks like a label on the bar – thanks Blackboard for making that obvious!)
4. Select the file from your computer (remember where you kept it and remember to not unzip it)
5. Select All - to get everything (A common mistake is not selecting any content and importing nothing).
6. Select Submit

Wait about a minute and your content will be imported.  With most systems, Blackboard will mail you when the process is complete.  When it is complete, you may notice the tool bar needs some tidying, but everything is there.

Using the Import Package, as well as the Export Package, is a great way to share content with fellow educators when you do not have access to their course content in Blackboard.

 Now let’s start importing content.

Do Not Use "Force Completion" and Stranger Things

You are putting together a test for your online course in Blackboard.  As you scroll down to look at the different options after the timing options, you see “Force Completion”.  If a student navigates away from a Test, and the Force Completion option is turned on, the Test is automatically submitted for them by the system.

This test you are creating is online, and we cannot be too careful.  This tool will ensure that students cannot cheat, like a proctor, right?

No.

While this feature is often wrongly attributed to making online examinations more effective by dissuading academic dishonesty, Forced Completion creates more harm than whatever good it is intended to do.  Problems with Internet providers or browsers are more often the culprit than students attempting to abuse the testing time. On countless occasions help desks get calls from distraught students because their system lost the connection and their test was submitted – incomplete. Worse still, there is nothing they can do to help. This has motivated multiple universities to recommend not using, ”Force Completion”

If your goal is to punish students who have unreliable internet, browser, then "Force Completion" is a great tool.  However there is no pedagogical value in this and it creates serious issues of equity in your course.  The unreliability of Force Completion and the technical issues it creates makes it ineffective at what it was designed for at best, and discriminatory at worst.

If an assessment requires forced completion to be effective, it wasn’t much of an assessment to begin with.  Forced Completion offers arbitrary criteria in evaluating students and burdens support services. Effective online assessments allow students to demonstrate their mastery of the subject.

This can be done without forcing student to recite answers in a short period of time with arbitrary punishments divvied out.  The key to online learning is to focus on constructivist techniques for learning, and not passive learning activities.  This is not to say that online tests are not effective, but to suggest how they are used, such as a tool to help students self-assess their understanding, is key to using test successfully.  While this can be difficult to navigate, minimally it means that you should not use Force Completion.

Items in Blackboard

In Blackboard there are several ways to create content. An Item offers a ‘flat’ presentation of content that allows users to see the content without having to click to another page and, more frustratingly, have to click to go back the top menu.

What are the advantages of an Item?

Some advantages include:

• Items can offer quick information, like module objectives or advice, that can help students
• Items allow you to insert a title, descriptive text, and file attachment. This is a great way to offer instructions or supply context to the content – such as an attached file.
• Items are developed with the content editor. Thus you have the same freedom as other content tools

How do I make an Item?

An Item can be created by:

1. Selecting Build Content
2. Select "Item"
3. You will have to add a title and will be presented a content editor. Thus it is capable of anything the editor offers, such as links or embedded video.
4. You can also attach a file
5. Select “Submit” and you have an Item.

Recommendations

Best practices for using Items include:

• Items are best when short and share a brief message. More detail can be supplied in a Blank Page.
• The content editor, which allows: embedding of web 2.0 tools, video, audio, images, hyperlinks and more, is a powerful tool. Tragically, this is often overlooked. Be sure to use it wisely to best meet your objectives.
• Items display at the top level, and do not open like pages in Content Folders. Used correctly, they can offer insight to navigation, act as an abstract, or offer quick access to a link, video or file.
• Items allow for information to be included with files. If you want to add context about an attached file or hyperlink, you can include instructions about the content you are sharing with the students with an Item. The Link and the File feature do not offer such an elegant solution.
• If you have only one page for a content section on the menu, consider using an Item for easier navigation. Less clicking makes for happier students.

Warning:

As a rule, you want to be careful with the size of your Item. If your item is too long, it may distract students and make it harder to navigate the course. It is important to avoid the ‘scroll of death’ by creating long content dumps with Items. Your Items should not impede student navigation and being able to quickly review the entire course at a glance.

Follow these tips and your course can offer items that can improve your students’ success.

Creating a Class List with Blackboard

You find yourself teaching a hybrid course this semester, and are faced with an enigma. Is there no easy way to create a class list to take attendance when in class and you do not have access to the LMS? Copying them by hand from a computer screen the night before doesn’t seem to be a practical solution. 

It doesn’t take a detective to unravel this mystery - there is an easier way.  By going into your course shell in Blackboard, you can create a class list that can be downloaded and printed with these easy steps.

1. Go to the Full Grade Center.
2. From the Work Offline tab, select “Download”
3. Select the “User Information Only” feature under data.
4. Select Submit
5. Press the Download Button and an Excel File will be downloaded to your computer. This may contain sensitive information, so be sure to be careful with this file.
6. Open the Download file. Excel will probably give you a warning box telling you that the file could be unsafe because of a file format extension mismatch. This is not the case. It is just reading a hyperlink in the file that no longer points back to your Blackboard shell that would retrieve the students’ last access date.
   
   To continue, press “Yes” and open the file.

You now have an excel file with a list of your students that are registered for your course.  You can format it to your liking and print it out. This can be handy if you want to have a hard copy for taking attendance in areas where you may not have access to internet or do not wish to open Blackboard.

This is an easy way to create portable class lists.

Now that truth is out, we can rest easy and get back to what is important – teaching.

Adding Accessible Images in Blackboard

When developing a course in Blackboard, or any learning management system, you should ensure that every image has an alt-tag, or description. This is vital for ensuring that everyone benefits fairly. With a description, those with visual assisting software, or screen reading technology, can make sense of the image. Without a description, visually impaired students will only be presented a meaningless string of characters. (For example: you could hear this instead of this)  Since increasing accessibility is key to inclusivity and student success, as we as the law, it is vital to add a description to each image.  Luckily, doing so is relatively easy.

You just need to follow these steps:

1. In the Content Editor, select the third button from the far left on the third (bottom) toolbar. This button has a picture frame with a mountain and sun in it.
2. A new window will open. An image box will be starred. Just underneath the box is a button that states “Browse My Computer”. Select this. It will allow you to search your computer and select the image file you want to use.
3. Now, make sure give the image a meaningful Title and Image Description. This is important because this is how screen readers can access the image and translate them for the visually impaired. This will make the image more accessible, which is good practice, and ADA Compliant.
4. Select the “Appearance tab”. Select an alignment for the image. In general, if the image is not too large, you should select “Right” alignment and place it on the top of the page. This will give the image visibility while not drawing away from the users navigation ability or the primary text. For manageable whitespace, consider have a Vertical Space of 7 and a Horizontal Space of 11.
5. Select the “Insert” button

Congratulations, you have added an accessible image.

Announcements to Promote Student Success

Communication is key for student success.  This is particularly true for online courses where a sense of community is a key factor in student retention and achievement.

Found under the Course Tools in Blackboard, the Announcement tool is an excellent way of increasing communication with your students and to build a community of learning that is key for student success. 

To create an announcement, just click on the tool to view all the previous announcements and:

1. Select the Create Announcement button.
2. You will have to get the announcement or title or “subject”.  It is helpful to make these brief and to the point.
3. The content editor will allow you to add:
1. Text
2. Hyperlinks
3. Youtube videos
4. Photos, or
5. Anything else you can add create with the content editor
4.   The Web Announcement Options will give you the option to immediately publish or set a time for the announcement to be revealed.  You can also choose to email the students the announcement.
5. The course link can also link the announcement to a specific content page or assessment. 
6.  Don’t forget to hit ‘submit’.

Now you know how to use the announcement tool here are four tips to use it better:

1. Regardless of whether you teach a traditional, hybrid, or online course, using the Announcement tool is a create way to keep the students engaged in the course. It offers a tool for sending reminders that can keep the students focused and on track with the course.
2. The announcements offers you a better way to reach out to your students. The phone app pushes announcements to students’ phones to ensure they get the message.  Likewise, by choosing “Send a copy of this announcement immediately” you can also send the announcement to their college email as well. 
3. Minimally try to release an announcement once a week.  This helps keep their mind on the course and increases student engagement.  You might want to pick a specific time (such as Monday morning coffee hour) to be the regular time you send out a course announcement. 
4. You can create an announcement for each week all at once in the beginning of the semester, and set each announcement to be revealed on the appropriate week – using the Date Restriction feature.  This way you can set up a regular set of announcements to remind students of milestone events all at the beginning of the course.  This front-loading the course with announcements is a smart choice that can free up more of your time for teaching and less on administrivia.  You can then go about teaching knowing that you can add specific announcement messages when the need arises. 

By taking advantage of the Announcements Tool, you can foster a sense of community in your course, keep the students focused on their tasks, and contribute to your student’s success.   

Helping Students Sign on to Blackboard

Often students, as well as faculty, are new to the online tools of a college and logging onto the learning management system (LMS) can be intimidating.  The latter a student enters the class often contributes to the student not having enough time to complete course assignments or even knowing about the assignments.  Needless to say, it is critical for student success to get the students familiar with the online learning environment quickly so that they can focus on learning.  Sharing the video below as well as the PDF (downloadable below too) either from an email attachment or course hand out during the first day of class procatively addresses this issue and should increase your student success rate.

How do we get started?

You want to use the My SCCC Portal. You can get there, and then to Blackboard, by performing the following:

1. Go to the SCCC website (http://sunysccc.edu)
2. Select (click on) the MySCCC button in the top right corner. (it is the orange one)
3. Sign in using your email username and password to the SCCC Portal. If you do not know these, please contact the SCCC Help Desk at: (518) 381-1487
4. Look to the left column and notice the “Launchpad”
5. Scroll down and select (click on) the “BlackBoard” link

That is it. You are now in Blackboard. You should take a look at the institution page and notice your courses are on the top right corner as well as on the “courses” tab.

Now that you are in Blackboard, you can get started on completing your course work and getting your degree.

Below is a PDF you can download or print out to distribute to your students.

Creating a Rubric in Blackboard

Blackboard offers an option in its tools to create a rubric that can be used for grading.  This rubric is integrated with the grade center and makes its use easy for both the faculty and students. Let’s look at how to create a rubric in Blackboard.

1. Select the Rubric option from the list on Course Tools on the menu.  From there you can either create a rubric or import one.  You will need to have a have a rubric made in Blackboard, (in a .ZIP formatted file) to import the file, so let’s start as if you do not have a rubric and want to create one.
2. Select the “Create Rubric” button.
3.  Give your Rubric a Name and then write a brief description.
4.  In the “Rubric Detail” section you can choose many different rubric types.  Let’s choose one for point ranges.
5.  You can also edit or create rows and columns to meet your needs.  Be sure to label the rows with criteria that is meaningful and easy for the students to understand. Then the level of achievement should likewise have meaningful descriptions. 
6. Now it is time to Describe each level of mastery for each descriptor (fill in the cells) This will help students better understand why they received their grade and assists them at getting better.
7. Hit “Submit” and you saved your rubric.

Now you are ready to go. You can use this rubric by selecting the “Add Rubric” button under the Grading section whenever editing an assessment.

Remember, rubrics help you as an instructor and contribute to student success, so let’s start using them more often.

Above: When creating an assessment, you can add any rubric you created with use of the "Add Rubric" button,

The Content Editor in Blackboard

The Content Editor is a key tool used throughout Blackboard.  Whenever you need to:

• create content, or
• other pages,
• create messages, or otherwise
• post text

the content editor will be the tool you use.

Besides text, you can insert images, add web links, and many other features a word processor or web editor would allow. On the editor, there is a tool bar filled with icons, and when you roll your mouse pointer over an icon, a tool tip will appear to identify the icon.To prevent the loss of work, it is good practice to type your information offline in a simple text editor such as Notepad or TextEdit , and copy and paste into the Content Editor. To paste copied text into the Content Editor, you will need to use the "old-school" keyboard short cut: Ctrl -V (the mouse option does not work).

There are two views of the Content Editor:

• Advanced Mode: This presents the full toolbar of icons indicated by the upward pointing double arrow.  Click on that icon to reduce the number of rows of icons in the view. This will bring you to the Simple Mode and offer more screen real estate. 
• Simple Mode: Minimal set of icons featuring the most commonly used formatting functions. Click on the downward facing arrow to access more icons. 

For the most part, the Content Editor functions much like a word processor or any editor on the web.  Some of the most common functions you will use include:

• Formatting text.  The top left part of the bar have most formatting features.  Remember to use the Headings feature to identify headings.  It improves the accessibility of your work.
• Bullets and Numbers.  These are excellent for formatting web content. 
• Remove Formatting:  Have wonky formatting?  Is something not right?  Sometimes it is best to strip all the formatting and start again.  This can help.
• Indenting/Outdenting: This is excellent for formatting content for the web and accounting for whitespace.
• Insert/Edit or Remove Link:  Add hyperlinks to your documents to harness the power of the web.  Add context to the link with a brief description. 
• Insert Image:  This tool allows you to insert images.  You should be sure to
  • Consider copyright issues
  • Include a Title and Description (for accessibility)
  • Consider its position on the page
  • Be sure to use an image with the appropriate size and resolution
• The Mashups tool.  This will allow you to search and embed web 2.0 technology including images from Flickr and Videos from YouTube. 
• The HTML Editor: This tool lets you "look under the hood" at the HTML code that makes your page.  While this may intimidate some, this tool can be very powerful and allow you to embed useful interactive tools. 

Remember  to title the pages you create and hit submit.

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Helpful Tips:

• Functions that are grayed out are not currently available 
• You must select text to format text. 
• Click on the Full Screen icon in the toolbar to expand the working area in the Content Editor. You cannot save (submit) the page when in Full Screen. Click on the icon to reduce the screen, and the "submit button appears. 
• Click on the Preview icon in the toolbar to see the page as it will appear to the end user. 

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Credit to Open SUNY, Using the Content Editor.  Be sure to see the Open SUNY Student Orientation for more tips.

Extending Time for Tests

You are finally getting around to implementing a test in Blackboard for your course.  You discovered great options, such as:

• Randomizing the questions and the ordering of their answers,
• Pools of questions that allow each student to get a random set of questions, ensuring each test is unique
• Feedback for each question, to re-enforce learning and to guide the student to assess where they need to spend more time improving.
• Students can take the tests multiple times, to work to improve their knowledge
• Adaptive Release and automated announcements about the test
• Tests can be timed.

Everything is going great and then you get a call from the Office of ADA Transition Services. You have a student that requires 90 minutes of time to take your 60 minute test.

At first, this seems scary.  Is there an easy way to do this without having to make another test or having to learn how to develop Groups and merge their grades in the Grade Center.  You already developed a Baroque grading schematic that requires calculus to understand, and you have no idea how this new development will play out in the Grade Center?

Yes there is!  You can take a deep breath and rest assured.  Blackboard made it easy and can solve all these problems.

You simply select Edit Test Options.
Scroll down to section titled “Test Availability Exceptions” and select the “Add User or Group” button.
This will open a window where you can select the student who needs more time.
You will notice you can:

• allow more attempts,
• change the time, and even
• change the availability of the test for the student.

Now hit “submit” and you are done

Blackboard will take care of the rest and the testing will take place seamlessly.

One advantage over regular face-to-face instruction, is that using this medium allows those with ADA requirements to not even notice their exam is any different or feel singled out from the class.
Coincidentally, this is one of the reason a large number of people with disabilities prefer the anonymity of online environments.

So, when you need to extend the time, or add special exceptions to a test, know that you can easily do with the tools we have in Blackboard.  In fact, once you use them, you may wonder why you would ever go back to tradition pen and paper.

Blackboard Test Option Crib Notes

Do you want to investigate the slides from the above video for a tutorial on how to make the most from your online quizzes?  The slide show below will offer you tips on how to take advantage of these features in Blackboard.

Creating an ePortfolio and Sharing it in Blackboard

Creating a Digital Portfolio with Padlet

Having a digital portfolio is an excellent way to document your accomplishments as well as possibly to advance your career.  You can develop a digital portfolio easily with several various digital tool.  We will specifically focus on Padlet (http://www.padlet.com ).

To create a digital portfolio with Padlet, you will need to follow these steps:

1. Collect the information you would like to share in your e-portfolio.  This could be documents (in pdf format), hyperlinks to webpages, media files and any other information.  (Now you are ready to create a digital portfolio with Padlet)
2. Go to Padlet (www.padlet.com) and create an account.  You can use either your Facebook account or a Google account for easy sign in, or just use your college email.
3. Create a “New Padlet” You will be given a choice on the format.  Select the format you think will best represent your work.  When in doubt, you should try to keep it simple so your content is best represented.
4. Time to Modify Your Padlet
   1. Name your Padlet – I recommend something obvious like “My e-Portfolio”
   2. Format your Padlet.  On the right you can select a wallpaper.  The less busy, the more professional it will look and the easier it will be able to read.
   3. Hit “Next”
   4. Select Privacy settings:
       a) Keeping it secret allows you to show your Padlet to the people you share the link with and no one else.
       b) If you want everyone to see it, select “public”
       c) You probably want to limit those who see the Padlet to only be able to “read” the Padlet and not to change the content.
       d)  Now Select “Next” – this should save and get your started.  If you want to make changes, just select the sprocket up on the top right.
   5. Now it is time to add Posts.   This is how to make a post -   Click on the plus sign area on the bottom right. This will create a white box.  In this box you can:
   •  Title the box
   • Add a description
   • Select “Add an attachment” . With the Add an attachment feature you can:            
     • share a URL
     • upload a file
     • Use your webcam for a photo  
   Now you may want to develop your portfolio and include: 
   • You contact information.  
   • Add a CV or resume, you can easily attach a document file, and we recommend using the PDF file extension.  It is a standard file format that can easily be viewed and you can save to it from MS Word.
   • Add content, you can choose how to do this from you options
   • Add as many posts as you need
   
   
   Congratulations.  You have completed a Padlet that acts as a digital portfolio. 

Sharing your Padlet

Once you have your ePortfolio Padlet, or any Padlet for that matter, complete, you can share it with others rather easily.

You have two options for sharing – Dynamic presentation and Static presentation. You can do either with Padlet by selecting the Share Feature. For purpose of demonstration let’s see how we can share our Padlet in Blackboard.

Sharing your ePortfolio dynamically has the benefit of harnessing the web and any interactivity it affords.  This dynamic feature usually increases user engagement, which results in people spending more time looking at your ePortfolio.  There are two ways to share your Padlet dynamically.

After we selected the Share/Export/Embed option in Padlet, we can:

Share a link to the ePortfolio.  We can do this by:

1. Selecting “Copy Link to this Padlet.”  This will copy a link to our clipboard. 
2. Go into Blackboard to post.  (You may want to have it already open in a tab)
3. In the editor in Blackboard, click in text field and press Ctrl-V (paste).  This will copy the link as text into the editor.
4. Highlight the text (click down on the button and drag it across the text)
5. Select the Insert/Edit Link button (it looks like a chain on the second row of tools)
6. Copy (Cntl-V) the link into the “Link Path” field and select “Insert”.
7. Provided you gave the post a subject, you are done.  Select “Submit” to post.

A better, or nice looking, way to share your Padlet in Blackboard is to Embed it. You can do this by:

1. Selecting Share/Export/Embed
2. Select “Embed this padlet”
3. Copy the HTML code (the first set)
4. Go to Blackboard and prepare to post
5. Once in the editor, select the HTML button on the bottom right (third row)
6. Paste (Cntl-V) the embed code into the HTML code view window and hit “Upgrade”
7. Select “Submit”

 A static presentation is always good when archiving or when faced with the possibility of not being viewed online.  It would be prudent to add a static presentation as well when sharing your Padlet.

There are two easy ways to do this with Padlet.

First you go to the Share/Export/Embed option.  You then scroll to the export section and either select “Save as image” or “Save as PDF”. Both will give you a static file that you can attach to a Blackboard post as an attachment.  You could even do this to a post that you shared a link or embedded the Padlet with HTML code.

Once you do this, you are done.

The Edit Mode and Missing Content

The Case of the Missing Content

You logged in this morning and you are missing content in your online course!

This is why you hate Blackboard - you spent most of last night developing a large portion of your course including tests for the students, and now it vanished.

Don’t panic.  If you did not actually delete the files, the chances are you may be viewing the course with the EDIT MODE off.

In the top corner of a course in Blackboard you can access the Edit Mode
Button. You can toggle it to turn the Edit Mode on and off.

When ON, you will see all the course content and the editing controls.  You should note that students will not see this.  The Edit Mode function appears to users with a role of instructor, teaching assistant, course builder, and administrator only.

When Edit Mode is ON, all the instructor functions appear, such as Build Content or the appearance of instructor tools on the menu, like the Control Panel.

When Edit Mode is OFF, all instructor functions, such as the editing controls, are hidden. You will see the content as if you were a student. If a page is hidden from a student, even through adaptive release, you will not be able to see this.

This is sometimes handy, as it gives you a quick way to view the course as a student.  However, this can catch you by surprise and make you think your content is not there.

Now, check your course.  Is the edit mode off?  This is probably why you do not see the content you made earlier.

 Below are some cribnotes to help you.

Student Preview

There are a few items students will have access to that you will not when the Edit Mode is off. These include:

• Submitting assignments and take tests
• Creating blog and discussion posts
• Creating journal and wiki entries
• Viewing student tools, such as My Grades 

If you Enter Student Preview, you can view these features as it will create a mock student and ‘see the course with its permissions.  The Student Preview is located next to edit mode button. If you exit this mode, you can even save it and view it in your gradebook.

Embedding Dynamic Content

You have worked hard on your course and created some excellent content pages.  Since you know that students perform better with multiple modes of content presentation, you would like to offer some alternatives to text.  Today there are several options for including dynamic content from the web.  You could link to these sites, however, you would rather have the students have a streamlined learning experience.  You know that people are more likely to review the video before reading the text.




Besides, when you link to another site like Youtube, the students are taken out of their learning environment and subject to distractions, such as by videos of adorable cats. It is in the interest of these hosting sites to drive traffic to their site and retain it.  This is not in your interest as an instructor.

This is exactly why embedding the video in your content page better meets your pedagogical goals.  Embedding keeps students in the course and focused on learning.  Simply, embedding protects students from being distracted by those adorable cat videos. Moreover, you reduce the number of clicks to get to the content, and it common web developing knowledge that this encourages engagement.

In Blackboard, you already have the Mashup tool and it does embed the content at one level. This does not give you the same flexibility that you can enjoy when you opt to embed material by using the HTML button from the content editor.  Further, inside the content editor there is an option to access the Mashup tool. This offers the option of embedding video from Youtube, or offering a link, or providing a mashup.  While the tool does work, there is an even easier way.  Skipping this for an old-school way that will allow the freedom to select more web 2.0 options.  

Simply follow these steps to embed an object into Blackboard:

1. find object's embed code (note: When working with YouTube deselect the option to show related videos)
2. copy the embed code
3. go into Blackboard (it is best to use another tab)
4. create a 1 X 1 table and right align it – or chose the alignment you want.
5. add a little buffer, say 5 spaces horizontal and vertical
6. type a large number of the same digit (222222222222222222222)
7. Select the HTML button (third row down on the toolbars)
8. Scroll and find the large number (222222222222222222222)
9. highlight it and the paste the embed code in over it
10. Select “update”
11. Select “submit” and you are done.

Now let’s take a look at embedding a different dynamic content.  Look for the Share option, and then copy the embed code.  If you follow the same instructions – creating a table with only one cell, using a string of digits, entering HTML editing mode and replacing the string of digits with the code, you will have the same effect.

Using this technique will benefit your students with seamless access to many various engaging presentations and web tools.  Minimally you can use it for YouTube videos, but you should feel free to adopt this to take advantage of the several Open Educational Resources that exist and offer embed code.

Downloading Survey or Test Results

Blackboard allows you to easily create surveys and test, but sometime you may want to access the results in a spreadsheet to better analyze the data. You can do this easily by:

1. Go the “Full Grade Center”
2. Click on the chevron next to the column heading for the test or survey you want to download.
3. Select “Download Results”

You will be brought to a special page with several selection options.

• We recommend that you select ‘Comma’ to create a .CSV file.  This will work with most spreadsheet programs (such as Google Sheets or Excel).
• Then select what format and attempts you want included.  It is often useful select “By Question and User” and “All Attempts”

When you are done, select “Click to Download Results”.

The file will go to your download folder.  Please note that with some computer systems the file extension, that is the .CSV, is not included in the downloaded file’s name.  You can fix this by simply renaming the file, preferably something more useful than “Download” and include the “.CSV” in the name.

Now the new file can be opened in most spreadsheet programs.

You are done!

Creating Tests

When employing a test in Blackboard you will have three basic tasks:

1. You will create the test
2. You will need to create the questions (if you do not have a question set)
3. You will need to set up or deploy the test

Tests are assessments, so selecting the assessment tab will give the option to create a test of a survey.  In Blackboard, surveys are anonymous tests.  For this reason, we will focus here on tests as assessments and not on surveys.

When you select 'Test' you will asked name the test. Once you do this and select submit, you have accomplished task #1.

Moving to task #2, you will need to fill the test with questions either by selecting existing questions or creating new questions.

• You can search for existing questions from other tests or from test pools.
• You can select from many different styles of questions to create.

When you select or create a question, it is displayed on a question canvas that shows all the questions in a test. You can assign points to each questions, as well as edit their placement, edit their content or delete the question. You should also offer comments for correct and incorrect answers to the questions to assist the student's learning.

Once you complete task #2, you now can move on to the task #3 where you will deploy the test.

You will have to make the test link visible to students. NOTE: Blackboard's default is to hide test from students.  You will need to select the feature to make the test visible.

We recommend making the test visible to students as well as having the instructions visible as well.

You can now choose several options about the test.

• Please do not select Forced Completion. This tends to end test because of internet interference and IT cannot help the students.  A timed test that marks and submits the test when it is over works fine.
• You can choose the timed feature and accommodate ADA needs with the Exemptions options.
• You can encourage students to assess their own knowledge by offering multiple attempts with a timed test.

Once you select "submit" the test is deployed and it is added to the Grade Center.

Now that you can create a test, you may want to take advantage of several powerful features of Blackboard.

Question Pools

Question Pools allow the instructors to use questions in multiple assessments. They group questions so that they can be both imported and exported.
To build a pool, you will need to:

1. Go to the Control Panel and select the "Test, Surveys and Pools" option. 
2. Select "Pools"
3. Select "Build Pool" and complete the needed information page. Then hit “select”. 
4. You now have the option to create, find (from within the course) or upload questions to the pool.
5. Either create the questions or find the questions you want, and then submit.

Random Blocks

A random block is a number of questions selected from one or more question pools to be included in a test.

To create a Random Block you will need to select the element desired, such as an existing test.  You will then select "edit" to edit the test.

From the edit section, go to the Reuse Tab and select "Create Random Block":

1. Select questions - these must be from Pools (and not other tests) 
2. Search by criterion and select the questions desired. Then hit submit.
3. Then assign the number of questions to be displayed to students. (This should be less than the total number of questions)
4. Select OK

Final Note

Remember, best practices in test taking is to:

• Treat an online exam as an 'open book' exam and offer students a more authentic learning experience.  By being challenged even when they have the resources at hand, the test is more similar to real world challenges.
• Have multiple attempts and include error replies that identify student weaknesses and offer advice to how they can improve takes the exam past a measure of learning to becoming a vehicle that serves as part of the learning process.  This will allow students to reflect and improve
• Ask questions that require application of the knowledge the assessment is measuring. Design assessments to demonstrate the ability to apply knowledge the ranks higher on Blooms Taxonomy of Learning.  An added bonus of these assessment types is that they are great at reducing cheating (academic dishonesty). 

 Keep these in mind and your assessments can be an effective pedagogical tool.

Course Information Documents

Whether you are teaching a fully online course or a traditional course, students will benefit from you including a set of course information documents in the Learning Management System for them to access.  The documents take advantage of the everywhere/anytime nature of the web as well as afford student with quick answers to the college and course questions.
 
There are several benefits to using a consistent set of Course Information Documents, including:

• Uniform interface across classes helps students focus on the content that is important and not navigating the content.
• A uniform set of course information documents can help dismiss anxiety created from having several different styles and in some cases, no common style at all.
• These offer Another location to access information to assist with the students’ success
• They also supply a space the students can access the syllabus whenever they want, regardless of the time of day.

The following File (Course Information Documents) offers several boilerplate pages for you to use. They include:

1. The Instructor's Contact Information – let the students know how to contact you and a little bit about you.  You personalize this page, and add an image of you or something appropriate for the course (By the way, did you know that students are significantly more likely to give instructors a positive review if they have an introduction page with a short video introduction.)
2. Course Description and Policies – this is where you can remind students of the prerequisites and course policies (such as a late policy)
3. We have two excellent e-books that you will not have to edit at all:

1.  College Policies
2. Academic and Technical Support, offer:
• Updated information  about the college,
• Help desk numbers,
• Crisis hotlines,
• Student Code of Conduct, including Academic Integrity
• Computer Use and Netiquette rules
• Accessibility help and more
• The can be downloaded as a PDF.

4. Course Goals and Grading – let the students see it in a plain in a simple spot. You will want to edit this.  Here is a tip – if you create a chart in WORD, and copy the entire chart, it pastes with perfect formatting into Blackboard!
5. Syllabus & Schedule – simply remove the present files and upload new ones, It is best to upload these as PDFs as they are viewable inline while still offering a download option.

An added benefit to the boilerplate files is that that this upload will include a special playlist feature that will offer students access to a video playlist to assist them in Blackboard.

So please take a few minutes and import the course information documents into your class.  You can then edit them with the information that will customize the documents to reflect your course. Having a centralized set of information documents with a common interface for students and where they can access a printable syllabus helps everyone succeed.

Copy Course

You finally got a great course in Blackboard and you want to use it for next semester.  Maybe you just want to move a part of your course to another course. Blackboard can make this easy.

The Copy Course tool differs from exporting and importing packages by skipping creating an external file for faster content transfer.  Naturally its convenience comes at the cost of not affording you an external back up copy.

To use the course copy tool, you must go to the course that you want to copy content from.  You should note that this is the course you are copying from, and not to the intended recipient of the content.

You can use the Copy Course feature to move select parts of your courses or the entire course to another course by going to "Packages & Utilities" on the Course Menu.  It will be your first option. Select it and you will be brought to the Copy Course page.

You will need to select the destination course -- that is where you want the copy to go. When you do, select destination you want the content to be copied to and select "Submit"

Now it is time to select to the content to be copied.

Select all if you want everything copied. However there are two things to specially note:

1. Selecting the Announcements will copy over your announcements.  If you do not want them, you should deselect them.
2. Likewise, copying the  Discussion Board has two options.  If you do not want all the previous students’ threads copied over to the next course (AND this applies to most of you) be sure the:  Include only the forums, with no starter posts   option is selected.  Check for this first may save you a lot of deleting!

If you want to move only some of the content, you can select many aspects of your course, including

• Rubrics
• Content Folders on the Course Menu
• Tests, Quizzes, and Pools

You may want to note that with the ability to create content folders on the menu, you can virtually move any specific group of items from one course to another.

When you have all the items you want to copy selected, hit submit.

Within moments, all the information will appear in the destination course.