Katherine and Jill BlackBoard Advice

From Katherine:

Step-by-step Guide from the Outside In

After logging in…

Homepage => ‘My USC’ tab

There are 2 useful tabs here

1) ‘My Organizations’ => ‘FYE Instructional Support’

2) ‘My Courses’

- You can move these boxes around with +
- Click on ‘S’ in top right corner to select which courses show in this box. You can always access all past courses under ‘COURSES’ tab displayed at top of the page.

Click on your course title to access the class homepage

On the Homepage of your class

Towards top right hand corner, notice EDIT button with ON/OFF options. OFF will display what your students can see. ON will display all the options including editing options. It is useful to switch to OFF when using Bb in your class, if you’ve got any hidden options.

There is also an eye symbol that also shows what students can see but it also creates a special student account which is attached to your account.

MASTER MENU (left-hand side)

+ sign will enable you to add to this MENU. Content Area & Web Links are most useful. Subheaders and Dividers can also be useful.

To change titles, hide content areas from students etc, place cursor over title and click on down arrow to select appropriate options. You can also reorder content areas with +

Click on a Content Page

To add material, click ‘Build Content’ 

To upload a doc/pdf => ‘FILE’.  Go through NAME => UPLOAD A FILE => OPEN IN NEW WINDOW (useful for large docs and weblinks) => PERMIT USERS TO VIEW CONTENT => TRACK # OF VIEWS => DATE/TIME RESTRICTIONS

To upload weblink/ youtube etc => much the same.

‘Content Folder’ is useful if you’ve got a lot of documents and want to organise them.

To create submission portals for students to give in their work online

‘Assessments’ => ‘Assignments’

Go through NAME => INSTRUCTIONS => UPLOAD A FILE => DUE DATES => GRADING => SUBMISSION DETAILS (suggest allowing “multiple attempts” => “3”) => SAFE ASSIGN/PLAGIARISM CHECK (Tip: Don’t let students see SafeAssign results) => GRADING OPTIONS => DISPLAY GRADES (options you select depend on whether or not you will use the grading option) => AVAILABILITY 

Other Functions

·         ‘Discussions’ => ‘CREATE FORUM’

You can create ‘Threads’ within a forum so you can break discussions down week by week etc.

·         ‘Groups’ can be useful for Peer Review Groups

‘Create’ => suggest that you use ‘Manual Enroll’ for all of them

·         ‘Tools’

Can hide useless links from students

‘Announcements’ => shows up in homepage. Doesn’t send an email.

‘Calendar’ => can enter things into calendar. Shouldn’t bother though.

‘Course Messages’ => DON’T USE this. Use email instead.

‘Course Portfolios’ => Know nothing about this.

‘Roster’ => Go to dropdown box that says ‘Contains’ and choose ‘Not Blank’. Then hit search. Your class roll will appear.

‘Send Email’ => very useful. Choose either ‘All Student Users’ or ‘Select Students’. Whenever you send an email to your class, you get a copy sent to your registered email

‘Tasks’ => like Calendar, not that useful

LOWER LEFT-HAND MENU called ‘COURSE MANAGEMENT’

Has many of the same tools listed under the ‘Tools’ tab but has some useful links that aren’t available elsewhere.

‘Course Tools’ =>

1.       ‘Photo Roster’

2.       ‘Safe Assign’:

a)      You have to use this link to access SafeAssign submissions. You can select the appropriate assignment by following ‘Safe Assign’ => ‘Safe Assignment Items’ => ‘Title of Assignment’

b)      ‘Direct Submit’ very useful if a student can’t/doesn’t submit through Safe Assign or turns in a piece of work that you want to check for plagiarism.

3.       ‘Grade Center’ => Ask Jill

4.       ‘Users & Groups’ => ‘Users’ is an easy to access emails

From Jill:

          1. Go to Full Grade Center on the left hand side of your screen

        2. Click on Manage” (at top of screen) à and scroll down to Categories

                   
           3. Then, create your categories. Some examples may include:

            -Essay 1

            -Essay 2

            -Essay 3

            -Essay 4

            -SWAs

            -ICWs/Group Work

            -Peer Reviews

            -Participation

4. Go back to main full Grade Center page

5. Go to Create Calculated Column à Click on Weighted Column

6. Enter a column name – I usually just use Weighted Total

7. Scroll down to Section 3, which says Select Columns

8. Highlight the categories that you created on the left hand side of the screen and with the arrow, move them over to the box on the right side of the screen. When you do this, several options will pop up that allow you to enter the percentages that you want to assign for each category. For instance, if you want Essay 1 to be worth 10% of a student’s total grade, enter 10% into the box right below that category. Don’t worry – Blackboard will not let you continue this process until all of your totals add up to 100%, so it will catch some of your math errors if you make them. I weight my columns equally, so that each assignment in that category is worth the same percentage (though this does not mean that each one is worth the same amount of points). You also have the option of dropping a certain number of low grades, but this is something that I do not do in my own classes.

9. Once this is done, click Submit and you will be brought back to the main screen.

10. Whenever you want to add an assignment/grade to BB after this, go to the Create Column tab. Enter a column name, like “A Rose for Emily” SWA. Be sure to choose the SWA category for this assignment, otherwise it will not be counted in the weighted categories that you entered. Choose the maximum points possible and submit.