[BB] Blackboard Mobile Learn - Remind Your Students

Blackboard users,

Please remind your students that UM has paid for a site license to Blackboard Mobile Learn, so it can be used for free. I have talked to some students who really like it. They can check their grades, view announcements, and lots of other things with the app on their smart phone or tablet. There is information on the Blackboard home page (http://www.courses.miami.edu) for anyone interested in putting it onto their device. You can also go to http://goo.gl/hcVht to view the usage statistics. 

Blackboard Mobile Learn is the app that accesses information from the Blackboard course sites. UM also has a license for Blackboard Mobile Central, which provides information about UM. I use Mobile Central a lot, since it tells me when the shuttle buses will arrive at any stop. Mobile Central also has the Cafeteria schedules for students, news, a calendar, athletics, and more. The next release of UM Mobile Central will have a button for Blackboard Mobile Learn, so you will have everything combined into one app.

Bill Vilberg

[BB] FW: Draft of What's New - Blackboard 9.1 Servie Pack 8 (SP 8) Overview of New Features and Enhancements and Specific Materials

From: <Ramos>, "Ramos, Ricardo" <r.ramos3@miami.edu>
Date: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 11:45 AM
To: William Vilberg <bill.vilberg@miami.edu>
Cc: "Zaldivar, Alexander Paul"
Subject: FW: Draft of What's New - Blackboard 9.1 Servie Pack 8 (SP 8) Overview of New Features and Enhancements and Specific Materials

Missouri State University URL - https://experts.missouristate.edu/display/bb9/Blackboard+Learn+9.1+Service+Pack+8+FAQ

------------------------------------------

Blackboard version 9.1 Service Pack 8 (SP 8) overview of new features and enhancements. We would like to offer links to training and help pages for the new features available for both instructors and students.

Course-to-Course Navigation: Course-to-Course Navigation allows students and instructors to jump from course to course while retaining the context of the page or task from the original page of any recently accessed course.
Video Demo: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/movies/bb91_tools_course_to_course_nav.htm
Help Page: http://help.blackboard.com/student/Content/_student/student_environment.htm?SearchType=Stem&Highlight=navigate|navigation|navigating|Navigating|Navigate|navigated|Navigation

Activity Reports: Activity Reports provide reporting on how instructors and students are utilizing their Blackboard Learn courses and course materials. Administrators can generate reports for any course in the system, any user, or a collective view of users. Instructor reports are limited to their individual courses and the students enrolled in those courses. The following reports are available: Course Activity Overview - available to Instructors and Administrators; Student Overview for a Single Course - available to Instructors and Administrators; User Activity Overview available to Administrators only; and Single User Activity Overview available to Administrators only.
Video Demo: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/movies/bb91_reporting_course_reports.htm
Help Page: http://help.blackboard.com/instructor/Content/_instructor_course/instructor_course_evaluate_course_reports.htm?SearchType=Stem&Highlight=activity|active|activities|Activity|activate|activated|Active|actively|Activities||Reports|reports|reported|report|Report|reporting

Automated Regarding: Instructors can now fix problematic questions by simply editing the invalid question directly and having all necessary updates flow automatically to the Grade Center. For any assessment question, Instructors can drop, give full credit, change point value, or change which answer is marked correct. After the question has been updated, Blackboard Learn recalculates the score of all submitted assessments that included the updated question, reflects the updates in the Grade Center, and provides notification to both the Instructor and optionally to the Student for all impacted submissions.
Video Demo: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/movies/bb91_tests_auto_regrading.htm
Help Page: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/documents/getting_started_with_automatic_regrading_9_1_8.pdf

Negative Marking: Negative Marking allows Instructors to apply negative point values for incorrect answers on assessment questions.
Video Demo:http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/movies/bb91_tests_negative_points.htm
Help Page: http://help.blackboard.com/instructor/Content/_instructor_course/instructor_course_tool_assess_question_settings.htm?SearchType=Stem&Highlight=negatively|negative|Negative

Quick Setup Guide: When Instructors first enter a course they are presented with a Quick Setup screen that provides links to documents that outline working with content and getting started in the course environment. There are also direct links to the On Demand Learning Center and help.blackboard.com. This feature will help acquaint new users to Blackboard Learn courses, features, and capabilities to help them quickly get started.
Help Page: http://help.blackboard.com/instructor/Content/_instructor_course/instructor_course_structures_use.htm?SearchType=Stem&Highlight=quick|Quick||Setup|setup

New Themes: The default theme in Blackboard Learn has been updated to enhance usability. Course Themes are pre-built designs that Instructors can select to match their design preferences and teaching methods. Course Themes add a background image to the course display and change the color of the user interface. Course Themes do not affect content and can be changed at any time. Note: To use the Course Theme, the new default theme should be enabled, or an existing custom theme should be built upon the new default theme. Refer to the New Default Theme topic below for details.
Video Demo: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/movies/bb91_tools_2012_theme.htm
Help Page: http://help.blackboard.com/instructor/Content/_instructor_course/instructor_course_customize_style.htm?SearchType=Stem&Highlight=theme|Themes|themes|Theme

Course Structures: Course Structures are pre-built structures that focus on specific aspects of a course including Activity, Communication, Content, Systems, and Time. These structures re-align the left navigation to match the pedagogical needs of the particular course type.
Help Page: http://help.blackboard.com/instructor/Content/_instructor_course/instructor_course_structures_use.htm?SearchType=Stem&Highlight=quick|Quick||Setup|setup

Interactive Rubrics: Enhanced rubrics are here to better support instructor efficiency in the grading process and convey expectations to students. The rubrics enable the efficient, consistent grading of manually graded student submissions and also facilitate secondary evaluations used to support program evaluations. The rubric is 'clickable', allowing for dynamic entry of feedback and ratings. When creating a rubric, instructors can choose from 4 types (percentage, point, point range, and no-point), as well as assign weights to categories. The same rubric can be assigned to multiple gradable items. Instructors can also opt to have the rubric viewable by students. Rubrics can be imported and exported for use across courses.
Video Demo: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/movies/Bb91_grade_center_creating_a_rubric.htm
Help Page: http://help.blackboard.com/instructor/Content/_instructor_course/instructor_course_tool_rubrics.htm?SearchType=Stem&Highlight=Rubrics|rubric|rubrics|Rubric

Needs Grading Tool Enhancement: The Needs Grading tool is a view in the Grade Center that instantly provides instructors visibility and access to items that need to be graded. Gradable Blogs, Journals, Wikis, and Discussion Board activity will now appear in Needs Grading status in the Grade Center and on the Needs Grading page. When an instructor chooses to make an interactive tool gradable, (s)he will also have the option to choose how many interactions will place the item in Needs Grading status. A Discussion Board forum, for instance, might be set to only appear in Needs Grading status after a student has made three posts, rather than with each individual post. The Needs Grading tool is also visible as part of the Needs Attention Module so instructors are alerted consistently with other gradable items.
Video Demo: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/movies/bb91_grade_center_needs_grading_status_interactive_tools.htm
Help Page: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/documents/getting_started_with_the_needs_grading_page_9_1_8.pdf

Improvements to Student Access to Files Within a Course - Adaptive Release and Date/Time Availability Rules are Honored: Service Pack 6 and higher changes the way students access files that are stored in Content Collection or Course Files and linked in a Blackboard Learn course. Access is now granted using tokenized URLs instead of URL plus permissions to control read access to files from the course. Instructors (or those users creating course content) are no longer prompted to give Read access to newly created items. Adaptive Release rules are now honored for items stored in Content Collection and accessed through the Blackboard Learn course. Items that are released at a later date will not show up in a search before they are released.
Video Demo: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/movies/bb91_adaptive_release_create_multiple_rules_for_content_item.htm
Help Page: http://help.blackboard.com/instructor/Content/_instructor_content/instructor_adaptive_release_about.htm?SearchType=Stem&Highlight=Adaptive|adaptive|adaptively|adapt||Release|releases|release|released|releasing

Timed Assessments Enhancement: This new capability provides instructors with an intuitive means of setting time limits on assessments and configuring the system to auto-submit the assessment at time expiration. Instructors can now choose to make the timed assessment auto-submit, or to allow the assessment to continue beyond the allotted time as in previous releases of the Blackboard Learn platform. Students are provided with visual cues to track their progress when taking and submitting timed assessments set to auto-submit. Attempt information for timed assessments includes details on how much time the student spent on the attempt versus how much time was allotted.
Video Demo: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/movies/bb91_tests_survey_set_test_options.htm
Help Page: http://help.blackboard.com/instructor/Content/_instructor_course/instructor_course_tool_assess_deploy.htm?SearchType=Stem&Highlight=tests|test|tested|testing|Tests|Test||option|options|Options|Option|optionally|optional|Optionally|Optional

Improvements to handling Mini-Websites and File Packages: When an instructor links to an HTML file attachment from a course item, access to that HTML file will be granted to all users enrolled in that course. Instructors can also grant access to other files in the same folder or selected files in the Content Collection to handle mini-websites and packaged content. Student access is constrained by Adaptive Release rules, and these rules, along with access to the files, will be propagated along with the files when the course is copied.


Blackboard Training Video site: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/
Blackboard Training for Service Pack 8: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/understand.htm
Blackboard Instructor Help: http://help.blackboard.com/instructor/index.htm
Blackboard Student Help: http://help.blackboard.com/student/index.htm

 

[BB] A request for INS 101 O, INS 101 U, INS 101 V

Dear Bill and others in the Blackboard

I have a favor to ask - I tried very hard to do it myself but failed so far.

I am using (with 4 TAs i.e. in several sections) a Pearson book which uses MypoliSciLab.  In the past they used coursecompass which is a version (older) of Bb and I had never any difficulty. The new system is very different.  Herewith the instructions from Pearson's site as to how to upload to Blackboard their tests - and the tests are the main reason for us using this book.

http://media.pearsoncmg.com/cmg/blackboard/bbangeld2l_sat_download_readme.html

The instructions seem to be referring to an earlier version of Bb -  I tried everything approximating their advise and could not - if I tried to upload chapter after chapter - it reported errors.  If I tried to upload the zip folder it simply froze and did nothing - no sign of life.

I downloaded Pearson tests - it came in a folder in DOC which I could read.  But how to upload it to be able to use it as tests?  We cannot possibly upload it manually - we do not have the staff for it.

I changed the folder into a zip and attach it herewith.

It would make a huge difference if we could manipulate the tests which are otherwise totally pre-set, allow no change of content or of date, no addition and we do not like them really - nor the impossibility to time them - ie release them when we need to  which we could do as soon as they are in BB which - unless BB too has changed - allowed all of the above flexibility

Many thanks

Dr.Vendulka Kubalkova

Professor of International Studies

On Jan 19, 2013, at 9:55 PM, "Vilberg, William R." <bill.vilberg@MIAMI.EDU>

 wrote:

I missed it when it happened, but apparently Blackboard went down at or before 8:00 PM.

Bill Vilberg, bill.vilberg@miami.edu, 305-284-3944

[BB] Blackboard is DOWN (again)

I missed it when it happened, but apparently Blackboard went down at or before 8:00 PM.

Bill Vilberg, bill.vilberg@miami.edu, 305-284-3944

[BB] Blackboard up as of 5:00 pm.

Blackboard has been back in service since 5:00 pm.

-- 
William Vilberg

Sent with Sparrow

[BB] Blackboard is Down

The Blackboard system is currently unavailable. We will update you as we receive information 

-- 
William Vilberg

Sent with Sparrow

Blackboard Training Events

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[BB] Login issues resolved (we think)

Blackboard users,

The two Blackboard login issues experienced this week appear to have been resolved. 

1. Some people were receiving a Security Certificate Warning when first going to www.courses.miami.edu.

2. Some people were logging in through CaneID and then getting a Server Not Found error instead of being redirected back to Blackboard.

We believe we have corrected both of these problems. We need your help. Only you can let us know if we these problems are still occurring under some circumstances. For example, we have tested the primary browsers, but we do not have the ability to test ALL browsers. If you, or your students, experience either one of these errors, please let us know.

I apologize for this problem rearing its head right at the beginning of a new semester. I hope that it has not critically affected you or your students.

Bill Vilberg, bill.vilberg@miami.edu, 305-284-3944

[BB] Blackboard login problem

LOGIN PROBLEM - SECURITY CERTIFICATE WARNING AND/OR SERVER NOT FOUND

01/14/2013

0 Comments

 

If you are trying to log into Blackboard, and are getting a "Server Not Found" error and/or a Security Certificate Warning at some point in the process, please try the following steps.

1. Close/shutdown your web browser (Safari, FireFox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc.)
   
2. Open your browser again.
3. Go to "miami.edu/blackboard"

You should be able to get in with that web address. 

This content is taken from http://blackboardinfo.weebly.com, the blog where we post notes about our Blackboard system.

Bill Vilberg, bill.vilberg@miami.edu, 305-284-3944

[BB] Blacbboard Access issue

Blackboard users,

Some people are reaching a "Server Not Found" error when they are trying to log into Blackboard. We are working on determining how to permanently eradicate this problem. In the meantime, there are some workarounds.

• When you get the error, look at the address (URL) in the browser. It will begin https://www.www.courses.miami.edu… Remove one of the "www." entries and press enter. You should be into Blackboard.

Or 

• Instead of using the Bookmark or link you are currently using, type "www.courses.miami.edu" into the address bar and press enter to begin the login process. That should take you to the Login Selection page (with the pretty picture of the Split U). You should then be able to go to CaneID, log in, and when you click the link to continue to Blackboard, it should work.

Bill Vilberg, bill.vilberg@miami.edu, 305-284-3944

[BB] New image on login selection page and a new HELP link

Blackboard users,

The Blackboard login selection page, where you click on the button to continue to the CaneID authentication system, has a new picture. Hope you enjoy it. The fountain picture had been in use for years. We will probably change the picture every semester or so to keep that page from becoming stale.

In the upper right corner of every page in Blackboard you will see a new HELP link. That takes you to our ticketing system. If you need help, click on the help link and fill out a ticket. That is the best way to get a request for service completed. If you would like to talk to someone instead of filling out a ticket, call the help desk at 305-284-3949 between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm, M-F. If the help desk people are busy you may have to leave a message, or you may want to go back and fill out a ticket.

Have a great semester.

Bill Vilberg, bill.vilberg@miami.edu, 305-284-3944