Are Entries in the Blackboard Gradebook "Official" Grades

Please note that the grades posted in Blackboard are not the "official" grades - those at the Registrar's office are. Please make sure to keep a hard copy of your gradebook in case of system failure, deleted courses, or students removed from the Blackboard environment.

Archiving & Deleting Course Pages

Do you have a long list of courses on your Blackboard Welcome page? Do you have several similarly named courses on that list? We can archive (to another server) and delete (only from the Blackboard server) these courses for you. The advantage is that the course no longer shows up on your list (or the students? list) of courses, but can be readily restored.

Course Copy Function

It is very important to use a new course shell each semester. It's a fairly straightforward process to copy over information from a previous semester's course page into a new shell for the new semester.

Basic procedure for copying a course is to copy ALL of the material from the old course except for the students. This includes all Announcements (click on "View All" to see all previous announcements), Discussion Boards, and Gradebook items to name a few. It is important to check all areas of your course page to make sure information is correct and current.

Disabling a Course

1. Open the Control Panel for the course you would like to disable.
2. Click on "Settings" (in the "Course Options" box on the bottom left of the Control Panel).
3. Click on "Course Availability".
4. Click in the "No" circle.
5. Click "Submit" and on the following page click "OK".

The students now are unable to access the course page but all instructors in the course are still able to.

How do I access On-line Help and the Blackboard Instructor Manual

If at anytime you need help with a Blackboard feature, you may obtain on-line help by clicking the "Help" button within the blue section at the top of the screen.

Within the "Blackboard: Learning System" box, click the link for "Instructors."Please disregard the "Learning System Login" section. This brings you to a page with three options: Knowledge Base, Upgrades and Bb Documents.

• Clicking on the "Knowledge Base" button will open a window that provides you with access to written explanations regarding a variety of known issues with Blackboard. The content is searchable by keywords. Upon entering the "Knowledge Base" you are asked to select the version of our Blackboard installation. Click on "Blackboard 6.0x"
• Clicking on the "Upgrades" button will provide you with links to download the plug-ins that Blackboard recommends you have installed on your system.
• Clicking on the "Bb Documents" button will provide you with access to on-line instructor manuals.
  • Locate the section titled, "Blackboard Release 6.0: Instructor Manuals." You have the option of viewing the instructor manual either on-line or as a PDF file by clicking on "Release 6.0:L1."
  • You may encounter difficulty in viewing the PDF file if you do not have the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader (version 6).
  • You can obtain the latest version free of charge by following the Adobe Acrobat Reader link http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Manage Your Course Menu

Please note: buttons can also be renamed by clicking on "Modify" and they can also be re-ordered using the drop-down menu to the left of the name of the item.

Are there links/buttons on the left side of your Blackboard course page that you are not using? Clean up your page by deleting these, using the following instructions:

1. Enter the Control Panel
2. Click on "Manage Course Menu" (in the "Course Options" section on the lower left)
3. Find the link/button that you are not using (i.e. Assignments, Discussion Board, External Links)
4. Click on the "Remove" button to the right of the item you wish to delete
5. Click "OK" if you do with to remove the item

Links/Buttons that should NOT be removed (except under special circumstances) are: Announcements, Communication, and Tools.

One-On-One Training

Are you interested in using Blackboard but haven?t been able to attend a training session? Call the Blackboard Coordinator  at x8961 to set up one-on-one training.

Previous Semester Courses

It is important to archive or disable previous semester courses. Archiving essentially means the course is no longer shown on your list, but a copy of it is kept on a separate server. Disabling a course keeps it on your list of courses but the students are no longer able to access it. Both of these functions help to clean up both your list and the students' list of courses on Blackboard.

Problems Downloading Gradebook?

Several instructors have reported problems downloading items in the gradebook recently. It is important to ensure that your computer is up-to-date with the Critical Updates provided by Microsoft. Instructions can be found on the IT web page at: http://www.usip.edu/it/update.shtml. If you are still encountering problems, please contact bbhelp@usip.edu with a description of what you are doing and where you are encountering the problem (it's been slightly different for everyone).