ITL Links • Getting Started With Blackboard • Designing Your Blackboard Site • Adding Users to Blackboard • Adding Content to Blackboard • The Gradebook • Using Quizzes • Online Discussions • Collaboration • Blackboard Tools
Blackboard provides instructors with a "send e-mail" utility that is embeded within their course site. This tool will send e-mail to every student enrolled in your course site. The message will be delivered to the e-mail address associated with a user's blackboard account. By default we create all Blackboard accounts using students "uic.edu" addresses. Users have the ability to change this at any time by logging in and clicking on the tab labeled "My UIC" and then "Personal Information" from the main blackboard login page:
SENDING MAIL
To use this utility login and click "Control Panel>Send E-mail".
You will be presented with a list of different recipient list options ranging
from "All Users" to "Single/Select Users".
After you have specified the recipient list that you would like to send the message to you will be passed into an interface where you can type in the subject and text of the message. You also have the option to include an attachment. Be sure to check off the box labeled "Send Copy of Message to Self"; Blackboard does not keep track of outgoing mail so you will not be able to access a history of messages that you sent out.
If you receive error messages from a few of the students accounts read them carefully. The message normally indicate that the user in question has not yet activated their UIC e-mail address, or that the setting in Blackboard is pointing to an e-mail address that is not being actively monitored, or has expired. To fix this contact the user in question and make sure they update their "Personal Information" by following the steps above with a valid e-mail account.
The Assignment Manager tool allows you to post an assignment for viewing/completion, and then have students view this assignment and submit completed assignments and/or file attachments that will be appended individually to the on-line gradebook. This tool is an improvement upon the Digital Dropbox - now assignments are appended on a user by user basis and will be neatly organized in the gradebook as opposed to being uploaded into an unordered file repository.
Posting an Assignment
To use this tool login in and click on "Control Panel" and browse to
the specific content area where you'd like to post the assignment for students
to view. In the upper right hand corner of the content area you will see a dropdown
menu where you can select what you'd like to add. Choose the option labeled "Assignment"
and click the button labeled "Go".
Provide instructions for the assignment, then type in the text of the assignment or attach your file as you would when adding any other content.
Students Complete the Assignment
Students log in to your site, browse to the content area where the assignment
is uploaded, and then click the "View/Complete" link.
They will finish completing the assignment and then they are given the option to submit a file as the completed product. In addition to submitting the file they can also append comments.
To view completed assignments
Log in to your course site and click on "Control Panel>On-line Gradebook". You will now see that an additional column has been appended for the assignment that you distributed. Scroll down your list of students; you will see exclamation marks ( ! ) next to students that have completed the assignment.
Click on the exclamation mark to see more details. From here you will have a button labeled "View" that you will use to view the completed assignment file attachment that the student has submitted. You can then browse the content of the attachment, assign a grade, and also post comments and notes back to the student regarding the assignment.
To view completed assignments
Log in to your course site and click on "Control Panel>On-line Gradebook". You will now see that an additional column has been appended for the assignment that you distributed. Scroll down your list of students; you will see exclamation marks ( ! ) next to students that have completed the assignment.
Click on the exclamation mark to see more details. From here you will have a button labeled "View" that you will use to view the completed assignment file attachment that the student has submitted. You can then browse the content of the attachment, assign a grade, and also post comments and notes back to the student regarding the assignment.
If you wish to markup the actual file attachment that the student has submitted you must open it, mark it up with your comments, and then save the new version on your hard drive before posting it back as an attachment. The system does not support realtime file collaboration, so you must first save, and then post the new file back to the student.
The Blackboard system does not actively scan files posted for viruses. Be vigilant when downloading files that students have submitted and saving/executing them on your hard drive. Be sure to install and update your antivirus software. UIC affiliates can download antivirus software here.
Blackboard supports the ability to create what they refer to as "Groups". A "Group" is a small subset of users within your Blackboard site that will have access to a set of collaboration tools that only the group members and the instructor can view. This is a nice tool to use if you assign a group project during the course of a semester - the group page allows for user's to communicate and post files related to the group project.
To Create a Group
Login to your Blackboard site and click on "Control Panel>Manage Groups":
You will see a button labeled "Add Group" - click on this button. In the subsequent screen you will be prompted to type in a name and description for the Group. You will also be asked to assign access to the following "Group Options":
Assign access to these tools accordingly and then scroll to the bottom of the form and click submit. After creating your group you will receive a confirmation that you have succeeded and you will be passed back into the "Manage Groups" page. To begin adding students into the group you just created click on the button labeled "Modify" located next to the group you just created. You can now begin "Add(ing) Users To Group". Click on the "Add Users" link and search for specific users within your site or simply click "List All>List All" and then scroll through your roster and place check marks in the boxes next to the students you wish to assign to this group.
When students login they will be able to click on the navigation menu button labeled "Groups", or the button labeled "Tools" or "Student Tools" and then gain access to the collaboration areas that you have created for them.
**Please note** In order for students to begin using the "Group Discussion Board" you will need to login and create an individual forum for them to use. You will need to do this for each group that you create.
Safe Assignment is a tool that allows you to check assignments submitted to the Blackboard system against a large number of "plagiarism databases". The tool will accept students incoming papers, and then search each individual paper against databases ranging from "paper mills" and other "term paper for sale" sources, as well as other papers from here at UIC.
To use this tool login in and click on "Control Panel" and browse to the specific content area where you'd like to post the assignment for students to view. In the upper right hand corner of the content area you will see a dropdown menu where you can select what you'd like to add. Choose the option labeled "Assignment" and click the button labeled "Go".
SafeAssignment at UIC
Instructors can submit student term papers manually (individual documents or groups
of documents in Zip files), or easily set Blackboard Assignments to automatically
collect the papers and run them through SafeAssignment's plagiarism detection.
For each document submitted, SafeAssignment produces Originality Reports which provide only the necessary information in a highly intuitive form, so that instructors only need to spend a few seconds to determine if plagiarism has occurred and to identify the sources.
Because SafeAssignment works as an plug-in module to Blackboard, no special accounts or passwords are needed. Faculty members who do not use Blackboard… but are interested in using SafeAssignment should contact the Instructional Technology Lab for special arrangements.
The system can be used in two different ways:
The system works with practically all common file types including MS Word and PDF. PLEASE NOTE - After students assignments have been uploaded there will be a slight delay between the upload and the receipt of the results; this is due to the fact that the system will be searching multiple databases and comparing all the text of the paper submissions against multiple sources. Results are normally available within 10 - 15 min
STREAMING MEDIA EXAMPLES OF HOW TO USE SAFE ASSIGNMENT
Example
of using Safe Assignment for single item submissions (Quick Submit Mode)
Example
of creating a new Safe Assignment in a content area and then reviewing the results
SafeAssignment
REACH 2005 Meeting (PDF file, requires Adobe Acrobat - 32 KB)
The "Calendar" tool is yet another calendaring application that allows you to input dates and important information into a course site's on-line calendar. To input calendaring information related to your course login to your site and click "Control Panel>Course Calendar>Add Item".
You can now begin inserting individual calendar items into your course calendar.
**Please note - this calendaring application does not support recurring events, alarms, reminders, or any other advanced calendaring functions.
A Learning Unit can be thought of as a folder. This is a container to hold content. The difference between a folder and a learning unit is the ability to "enforce sequential viewing". If you highlight this option when creating the learning unit the end user will only be able to walk through your content in the order that you have specified.
To Create a Learning Unit
Login to your course site and click on "Control Panel" and then browse
to the content area where you'd like to begin adding your learning unit. In the
upper right hand corner of the screen click on the dropdown menu and select "Learning
Unit" and then click "Go".
Provide a name and description for the Learning Unit and then specify the availability options for the learning unit itself.
The Learning Unit specific availability options are "enforce sequential" viewing and "open in new window".
If you enforce sequential viewing user accounts will be forced to walk through the lesson in the order that you post your content. This provides a nice way for instructors to walk students through a lesson without giving them the ability to skip around to different content.
If you set the learning unit to open in new window the learning unit itself will open in a browser on top of the Blackboard course site. That way a user can easily browse around, close the window when they are finished, and still be logged in to the Blackboard site.
In addition to content you can also append a quiz onto the end of a learning unit. This provides you with a learning module that will walk your student through a series of content items that make up a lesson, then append a quiz onto the end of that lesson to immediately assess their retention of the concepts and information presented in the materials.
What is a LRN package?
Learning Resource iNterchange (LRN, pronounced "Learn") is Microsoft's implementation of the IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS) Content Packaging Specification, version 1.1, IMS Learning Resource Meta-data Specification, version 1.2 and the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) Specification, version 1.2.
These content packages can be created with the Microsoft LRN 3.0 toolkit which is a free download here.
This toolkit allows you to create LRN packages out of common Microsoft application files such as Powerpoint and FrontPage. For more information on LRN packages please click here.
Adding a LRN Package
Login to your course site and click on "Control Panel" and then browse to the content area where you'd like to begin adding your learning unit. In the upper right hand corner of the screen click on the dropdown menu and select "LRN Package" and then click "Go". Provide a name and description for the Learning Unit and then specify the availability options for the learning unit itself.
Under the 'LRN Package Attachments' section of the form click on the button labeled "Browse" and find the LRN package on your local machine. Select it, and then click "Open".
Scroll to the bottom of the form and select the availability options for the package. Scroll to the bottom of the form and click submit.
When we create blackboard accounts for students we use the UIC e-mail address as the default address associated with their account. If students do not use this address or if they have set their account to use another e-mail address that is no longer active you will receive a message stating that the mail could not be delivered. In order to fix this the students in question must login and set their Blackboard e-mail account to a valid, active account. Any Blackboard user can change this themselves by logging in and clicking the MY UIC tab on the main login page and then the "Personal Information" link.
You can edit a students submitted assignment and then send it back to them using the assignment manager. In order to do this you must login and access the students assignment by clicking on the "Grabebook". Once you are in the gradebook find the assignment in question that the student submitted and click on the exclamation point and then the button labeled "View". To view the assignment click on the link to the file.
In order to edit it you must make your edits and then save the file on your own hard drive before re-attaching a file to send back to them.
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Last Modified: July 8, 2005 - Instructional Technology Lab