Student Support
Students that require one on one assistance can come to the Student Media Lab on the east or west campus during our walk-in hours.
- ITL-West: Room 181 BGRC, Monday and Thursday from 1-5pm
- ITL-East: Room 1-460 LIB, Monday through Thursday from 1-5pm
I am having problems accessing blackboard
To access blackboard, you must use your UIC NetID (the same as your UIC email ID) and the 'Common Password' (meaning, the same password that you use to access your UIC Webmail). Make sure that you do not append '@uic.edu' to your UIC NetID while trying to log into blackboard.
If you are still not able to access blackboard, try resetting your password at http://passwords.accc.uic.edu.
If you continue to have problems with your UIC computer account and password, please contact the ACCC Client Services Office (CSO) .
You can reach the CSO at 312-413-0003, consult@uic.edu, or you may have to see a CSO consultant at any of the ACCC computer labs (see www.accc.uic.edu/pclabs) or at the CSO main offices in 2267 SEL or 181 BGRC, i.e. the room outside of the ITL-West.
Recommended Blackboard Browsers
Windows users
- Use IE 7 or IE 8
- Use Firefox 3.5 or later
- (Google Chrome works ok to)
Mac users
- Use Safari 4 or later
- Use Firefox 3.5 or later
General Information
- Other Web browsers may work as well, but do *not* use IE 9 nor IE 6 or earlier, and Mac users should not use Safari 2 or earlier.
- Also, browsers should have their default settings for java, JavaScript and cookies set to on, i.e. enabled.
My password doesn't seem to be working but my account still exists. How can I reset my password?
To reset your password you need to visit the password changing utility on-line at:
If you are unable to use this utility you will need to visit the CSO consultants. These consultants are located in a few different locations on campus:
- Client Services Office (Room 2267 SEL)
- BGRC Consultant's office (Room 181 BGRC)
- ACCC Network Operations (Room LL55 BGRC)
The CSO is generally open during normal business hours, and the schedule for the BGRC consultants is posted on their door. Network Operations is staffed 24 hours, 7 days a week. To reach the CSO either e-mail consult@uic.edu or call 312-413-0003.
This utility is only available to users who have activated their UIC NetID. If you have not yet activated your UIC NetID, please visit the ACCC Accounts page and click on Activate UIC NetID.
Some old classes show up in my list of courses. How do I get rid of them?
Semester-based sites are made unavailable about a week into the next term. That means you don't need to do anything to avoid seeing those - just wait a while. Sites for the current semester that you dropped will only be removed from your list if the instructor of that class removes you from his Blackboard site, so talk to your Instructor.
Note that you can simply clean up the list of sites you see yourself: click on the pencil icon above the course listing to edit the settings for the "My Courses" module. You can choose which sites you wish to see, and what extra info about them you want to get.
Note that this will not remove older sites from the list of courses you see under "My Grades" - there you should see all courses, even outside of their duration, so that you have a history of your grades.
Blackboard doesn't show up the current courses into which I am registered. What do I do?
There are various possible reasons:
- Your class does not use Blackboard at all. Ask your instructor whether it does, and whether he has requested a site for this term yet.
- Your site has recently been requested, but is not yet created. Your Instructor will tell you when the site is ready.
- Your site exists, but has not been made available to students. Ask your instructor to change this from his course control panel, under "Settings > Course Availability".
- You have not yet been added (enrolled) to the Blackboard site, although you have enrolled to the course. This may mean the site has the wrong call number(s) (CRNs) listed, leading to wrong/incomplete enrollment. Your instructor can correct this from the course control panel, under "Settings > Course Name and Description".
Or it may mean our record of you is somehow incomplete/incorrect. In that case, the instructor can enroll you manually for quick access to the site.
I am having problems with quiz submission.
Make sure to start the quiz only once. If you double-click on the submit button, reload the page, or do anything else that fires off a new attempt, you will not be able to submit your answers. If upon submitting your quiz you get an error like "attempt not found" this is surely what happened. Note that you should avoid clicking twice on the link to take quiz. Contact your Instructor to get the issue resolved.
I submitted an assignment, but the instructor cannot find it.
The Assignment interface has a "Save" and a "Submit" button. "Save" means that you will continue to work on the assignment, and will retain the ability to withdraw, add, or replace files. Once you click "Submit", you can't do this anymore, and cannot re-try the assignment either. It is only at this stage that the instructor sees your assignment as submitted and can download it for grading. So go back in and click "Submit"! Make sure that you get receipt message saying that the assignment was successfully submitted once you clicked on the "Submit" button.
What username and password should I use?
Blackboard accounts use your UIC NetID as your Username and StudentID (the NetID is the first part of your UIC email address, e.g. student John Doe would have NetID jdoe1 and email-address jdoe1@uic.edu ). All NetIDs are lower case only!
If you forget your password, you should visit the on-line password changing utility at http://passwords.accc.uic.edu to change it.
If you are unable to use this utility due to the fact that you have forgotten your password you will need to visit the CSO consultants. These consultants are located in a few different locations on campus:
- Client Services Office (Room 2267 SEL)
- BGRC Consultant's office (Room 181 BGRC)
- ACCC Network Operations (Room LL55 BGRC)
The CSO is generally open during normal business hours, and the schedule for the BGRC consultants is posted on their door. Network Operations is staffed 24 hours, 7 days a week. To reach the CSO either e-mail consult@uic.edu or call 312-413-0003.
If you have not yet activated your account you can do so on-line at http://www.accc.uic.edu/index.html/ACCTS.html.
I try to take a quiz or survey but it says "Sorry...you already took this assessment on..."
If you look at a survey or a quiz, then press your browser's back button, or you start to take the quiz and do not submit it for whatever reason, the next time you try to take this quiz you will get a message from the Blackboard server
Sorry...you already took this assessment on ...
For fairness reasons, you are typically only allowed to take a quiz once and you are not allowed to see a quiz before taking it for credit.
If you feel you are getting this message incorrectly, contact your instructor or T.A., giving all pertinent details. If indeed you are getting this message in error, your instructor can reset your quiz attempt and you can take the quiz again. Also see the comments under internal server error for important info!
Note: All transactions on Blackboard are logged. All page requests, times and data submitted are recorded and searchable.
My quiz grade is gone!
Situation: you successfully took a quiz and got a grade, but later notice that your grade is gone and only an exclamation mark shows up under Check Grades. This happens when the quiz is set to allow multiple submissions and you later look at it again without submitting it, e.g. because you want to print it. This will establish a new attempt at the quiz, erasing all your previous answers! To see your submitted quiz and compare your answers, click on your grade within Check Grades instead - that is safe.
Can I enter a site I am not enrolled in (as a guest)?
Yes, Blackboard has a "Preview" feature, allowing every user on the system to enter all other course sites that have guest access enabled with limited access.
Instructors can configure how much a guest user can see of their site. You will never be able to access Communications and Student Tools, nor take Quizzes or Surveys.
If you are not enrolled in a class using Blackboard and want to get a glimpse of some course site, try logging in using the "Preview" feature. Click on the login button, and then on the lower left hand side of the screen you will see a button labeled "Preview". Click on the "Preview" button, and then on the tab labeled "Courses" and you can now browse through any of the courses on the system that have "Guest Access" enabled. Certain areas of the sites may or may not be accessible to you, depending on the instructor's preferences.
I have been using the system successfully all semester, but I am now having problems logging in.
We have found that this strange behavior often occurs when users have not cleared their browsers "cache" after extended periods of use. If you begin experiencing this behavior and are still able to log on with it from on campus machines, or if you know that you have not reset your password, then follow these steps to clear your browser's cache:
In Internet Explorer:
- Click on Tools > Internet Options...
- Click on the tab labeled "General"
- Under the 'Temporary Internet Files' subcategory click on "Delete Files".
In Firefox:
- Click on Tools > Options
- Under the 'Advanced' subcategory click on 'Netrwork'
- Click on the button labeled Clear Now under Offline Storage