[BB] SafeAssignment syllabus statement and consent form

SYLLABUS STATEMENT: If you will be using SafeAssignment to process original writing submitted by your students, I encourage you to include a statement to that effect in your syllabus.  Here is some sample wording.

Written Assignments
 
This class uses the SafeAssignment feature of Blackboard to help students learn to use sources and citations appropriately. SafeAssignment matches the material in student papers against material on the Internet and in our database of UM papers. Representing the words or ideas of someone else as your own is a violation of the honor code and a serious infraction in this course. If you have questions about appropriate ways to include the words or ideas of other people in your papers, contact the instructor. Papers submitted to SafeAssignment are added to the database of UM papers.

CONSENT FORM:  In order to manage our risk, a consent form will be automatically inserted into each SafeAssignment link when you create it.  Here is a sample of what it will look like.

 

 

For anyone without the ability to view the graphic, here is the wording of the message that will automatically be added to each SafeAssignment item.

You are about to submit a paper via SafeAssignment in Blackboard. The contents of your paper will be matched against material from the Internet and papers from UM. The results will be made available to your professor. By submitting your paper, you agree to this process and you also agree to grant the University of Miami permission to retain a copy of your paper to be used for future matching.

Our legal counsel feels that this will reduce our risk of "Intellectual Property" issues. 

 

Bill Vilberg

305-284-3949 (work); 786-218-3052 (cell); 305-255-9138 (home)

 

[BB] My Bb projects

We are working on a number of projects related to our Blackboard system.  Here is a quick status update.

 

1. HARD DISK BACKUP:  We contracted to have our entire system backed up to a hard disk.  Then the HD is to be shipped to us.  That will be a permanent archive as of that date.  If we mistakenly remove any courses, it will allow us to recover them.  We sent the PO for this and are waiting for Bb to backup the system and send us the HD.  Until this is completed some of the projects below cannot be completed.

 

2. OLD COURSE SITE REMOVAL:  We are going to remove course sites that are more than two years old.  We have an exception list for special cases.  We have currently set the courses to "unavailable" so that students can no longer access them.  We will not remove them until after we receive the HD backup listed above.  We will announce this prior to taking any further action.

 

3. FILE SIZE REDUCTION:  We want to take steps to reduce our file storage needs.  Removing the course sites that are more than two years old will help.  We will be working with people with large sites after the old courses are removed.

 

4. ENABLE SECURITY:  We want to turn on security so that everything sent between a computer and Blackboard is encrypted. This is referred to as SSL or https.  You shouldn't see any changes because of this, but the information you communicate with Blackboard will be better protected.  As soon as we get a date for this we will announce it.  That way you can let us know if there are any unexpected consequences.

 

5. APP PACK 2 SYSTEM UPGRADE:  We want to upgrade the system to App Pack 3.  We are currently on App Pack 1, so we will need to upgrade to App Pack 2 first.  There are no real changes that you will see when this is accomplished.  We do not have a date for the App Pack 2 upgrade.  We will announce it as soon as we get it.  The downtime for this should be 15 minutes or so in the early morning, like 3:00 AM.

 

6. APP PACK 3 SYSTEM UPGRADE:  This is the upgrade that has some great new features.  The "What's New" feature will be back, listing the new items that have been added to a site since your last visit.  You will be able to see a page with all of your students and when they last logged in.  You will be able to create material that is released based on powerful logic.  Some new plug-ins will be available to help you grade discussion board communications and import course material from Merlot.  This upgrade is scheduled for Tuesday, August 9.  The system is scheduled to be down all day.

 

Bill Vilberg

305-284-3949 (work); 786-218-3052 (cell); 305-255-9138 (home)

 

[BB] Bb to be down Tue, Aug 9

I want to upgrade our Blackboard server to App Pack 3, the latest release.  Blackboard will need 24 hours for the upgrade.  During that time the system will be unavailable.  We are scheduled to perform the upgrade on Tuesday, August 9th. 

 

I will be distributing complete information on the features in App Packs 2 & 3 (AP2 will be applied prior to AP3 and will not require any noticeable downtime). The main two features we will be adding are the ability to export raw data from tests (and surveys, I think) and the ability to hide/reveal items based on extensive logic.  For example, you might have a reading with a quiz.  After a student gets 80% or more, say, on the quiz, the assignment for that reading appears.  Until the student gets 80% the assignment doesn't show up.  Or Chapter 2 doesn't show up if the student can't get some score on the Chapter 1 material.  I think these two features are the most important, but there are lots of others.

 

I realize having the system down for a day will impact some courses.  With current schedules there is no window in which some courses are not being taught.  In addition Blackboard hosts our server and will only perform two upgrades a day, so we had limited dates available.  I hope this is enough warning that anyone impacted will be able to create alternate plans.

 

My goal, as always, is to stabilize the system two weeks before classes begin and not perform any additional changes in functionality during the semester.  Security changes will always be applied as needed, of course. Since classes begin August 24, I need the system stable August 10.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that everything will work on August 9.

 

Bill Vilberg

305-284-3949 (work); 786-218-3052 (cell); 305-255-9138 (home)

 

[BB] Welcome, Welcome, Welcome... [Oops]

I recently discovered that the fall 2005 course creation process messed up. Multiple "Welcome" announcements were created on some course sites.  If this affects any of your fall course sites, I am sorry.

 

If we created duplicate Welcome announcements on any of your Fall 2005 course sites, there are three different ways to clean things up. 

 

1. Let us know what sites have the duplicate announcements and we will take care of it. Anytime I see the problem I automatically clean it up. If you let us know the course ID, ENG205A for example, we will be happy to remove the duplicates.  Just send me an e-mail with any affected sites.
   
2. If you want to fix it yourself and you have not created any announcements in your Fall 2005 course site yet, the simplest solution is to remove ALL the announcements on your course site.  You can do that from Control Panel > Recycle Course (in the Course Options section) > Announcements (check ONLY the Announcements box) > type "Remove" > Submit.
   
3. The other way to fix it yourself, and the way we do it, is to go to Control Panel > Announcements and repeatedly click on "Remove" > "OK" for each announcement.  If you have a lot to remove (I saw 17 on one site and 23 on a number of others) you can speed things up by clicking on "Remove" and then pressing the Enter key, since "OK" is the default button.  That way you don't have to keep moving the mouse.  As you remove them it won't seem like anything is happening, since the list is so long.  After you remove enough you will see that the list is growing shorter with each removal.

 

Again I apologize to those of you who may be inconvenienced by this error.  Apparently it was caused by my only allowing 12 hours for the creation of the 9,500 fall course sites.  It actually took 13 hours.  Next time we create courses I will allocate 24 hours.

 

Bill Vilberg

305-284-3949 (work); 786-218-3052 (cell); 305-255-9138 (home)

 

[BB] Course site merges

A number of faculty request that we merge multiple course sections or listings into one course site on Blackboard.  We are happy to do that.  The easiest and most accurate way to get us the information is to go to www.snurl.com/bbforms and fill out the Course Merge form.  Courses for this fall all have "-061" at the end of the course ID. 

 

This form is simply mailed to me, so the format you use is not terribly important. Feel free to use the comments section to clarify your request or to include multiple merges on one form.

 

I try to work on your request the day that I get it.  I send an e-mail confirmation when I have set things up.  The merges are actually performed overnight.

 

Bill Vilberg

305-284-3949 (work); 786-218-3052 (cell); 305-255-9138 (home)