Go to the page What is Blackboard and Ways you and your students can use Blackboard.
Yes. However, there are a few issues you may encounter if you decide to use AOL, as AOL uses a proxy server that the Blackboard does not like. Here are some tips for the best results:
Note that instructors also have the option to login as a "fake" student to try out certain functions only available to specific users. More information about the "fake" student can be read below.
If you forgot your username/password or need your password reset, request help
Back to TopSince Fall 2004, students have been added and dropped from Blackboard automatically via a "Snapshot" tool that in effect takes a 'snapshot' of the enrollment data from Class-Web. Generally speaking, once students are enrolled or dropped in CLASS-Web, their status is reflected in Blackboard about 4 hours later. However, the change may not take effect until approximately 11pm that evening. Therefore, it is safest to let your students know that the effect can take as long as 24 hours.
Throughout the semester, the basic process is as follows:
We begin uploading students (who are already enrolled) about 1 week prior to the start of the semester. Students enrolling afterwards will be enrolled according to the details provided above. Note: if your site was just created, all students may not be uploaded until 11pm that evening. The following morning, you can view the list of students by going into the Control Panel and either clicking on the Gradebook or List/Modify Users.
I no longer see a student in my Gradebook nor do I see their work - what do I do?
Our campus/district uses a tool called Snapshot which essentially takes a "snapshot" of what is in Class-Web and reflects it onto Blackboard. In other words, the enrollment in Blackboard should exactly represent the enrollment in Class-Web. Therefore, if you do not see a student in a course in Blackboard, most likely the student isn't on the Class-Web roster either (for whatever reason). (For more details on how students are enrolled/dropped, click here).
Fortunately, if a student was dropped in Class-Web, they haven't been erased from the course; rather, they are simply "disabled" in Blackboard which causes their enrollment and anything tied to that student to be hidden from view. How to resolve this depends on the scenario. To figure out what to do, please follow the steps below:
Why can't I just "make [the course] unavailable" to individual students?
With the automation we gained from Snapshot came some loss of control, one being that instructors no longer have the option to make the course unavailable to individual students. If they try to do so, and the student is still enrolled in the course in Class-Web, within the next Snapshot run (for exact times, read the above paragraph) the course will be made available to the student again. The instructor will need to drop the student through Admissions & Records. If the student is still showing up in your Class-Web roster, contact Admissions & Records.
According to the Counseling Division Academic Regulations, incomplete (I) grades represent an instructor-student agreement that the student may complete the course work by the end of the following semester and receive an appropriate letter grade. How your student(s) will finish an incomplete within Blackboard for a course depends on the level of need.
For any questions on incompletes or to request one of the options, request help.
Back to TopGo to the Control Panel, then List/Modify Users, then List All, then List All again. You will see their names and email addresses. Note that if your site was just created, not all students may be uploaded. Find out when the next upload time is.
Back to TopBased on feedback from our student orientations, we strongly recommend that you name one of your buttons "Start Here" or "Start Here - Syllabus" or anything that is a clear indicator where the students should begin. You may have a lot of information posted, and it can be overwhelming to the student where to begin. Simply go to Control Panel, Course Menu, Add Content Area.
Back to TopIt is strongly recommended that you remove any menu items that you don't plan to use. Otherwise, students may become confused when they click on a menu item and receive the message "Folder Empty." Simply go to Control Panel, Course Menu, and delete the unnecessary items. You can always add them later if you decide to use them.
Back to TopWhen we create new courses, the default setting is that they are unavailable to students. This is so that you, the instructor, have complete control as to when students can access your course. Your course will remain unavailable (students cannot view your course) until you make your course available. To make your course site available or unavailable:
Also, if your course does not run the full length of the semester and you want Blackboard to automatically make the course available/unavailable to students on certain dates: First, make sure the course is set to available. Then, from the Control Panel, Settings, Course Duration, Select dates (then select the dates).
Back to TopWhile you can always contact support staff individually, to reach the most available staff member, please use our online Blackboard Help for Faculty/Staff form. We highly recommend using this form because it asks for the specific information we need right away so we can better assist you.
Back to TopBy default, your new course site is not setup to have guest access, but you can choose which areas you'd like to have guest access. While there are different methods of what constitutes "guest access," officially, guest access refers to anyone who
All other items, including Collaboration (Chat), Discussion Boards, Digital Dropbox, EMail, Messages, etc. are user-specific and so therefore they are not available to anyone using "guest access." Guests do not have the ability to post anything either.
You can either turn off guest access entirely for your course, or in specific areas.
I might seem that this guest access would be an ideal way for students to learn basic information about your course before the course begins. However, we have not encouraged the use of this "guest access" for the following reasons:
If faculty want a student (i.e. such as a TA) or another faculty member to have access to their course, they are encouraged to to provide the student their fake student or they can request other types of access.
What is a "fake" student? - a "dummy" student account created just for you so that you can view your course sites exactly as your real students do. While your instructor login can view everything that students see, there are some aspects that are specific only specific users, such as the Digital Dropbox, the Assignment Tool, the Gradebook, and the Discussion Board. Also, if you have copyright-protected publisher material (a course cartridge), while you may automatically see all of the content, the students may not necessarily see the content until they enter an access code. This "fake" student is also a great way to allow an observer, such as a member of the DECSC committee, to access and view your site.
What is my fake student username/password? During your introductory training to Blackboard, you should have been provided the username/password of your "fake" student (and been prompted to change it). If you don't remember it, you can locate the username in your training course - go into the Training Course Control Panel and List/Modify Users, and locate the "student" (containing your name) in your list. (Steps to List/Modify Users). Forgot what you changed the password to? Submit a Help Request.Please be sure to change the default password: Login using the username/default password. After you login, click on Personal Information > Change Password.
Note that in order to login as a student, you will need to make your course available . You should change the course settings back to "unavailable" so that when real students are uploaded (about a week before the semester begins) students do not login before you want them to do so.
What is the "chabotsupport" student? Note that when you "List/Modify Users" you will also see a "chabotsupport" student. Please disregard this student. Sometimes in order for staff to assist students with a Blackboard problem, we need to login as a fake student. This allows support staff to view the problem exactly as students see it. Therefore, we have also enrolled a "chabotsupport" student in all of your classes.
Request Blackboard Course Sites.
A "merged" or "crosslisted" site is when an instructor requests more than one Course Registration Number (CRN) to be setup as one site. All of the students from those CRN's would be uploaded to the one site and therefore have access to this one site (students would see only one link to the site). You can request this "merge" for either officially crosslisted courses (note, we have no way of knowing which courses are crosslisted unless you tell us in the Request Blackboard Course Sites form), or when an instructor is teaching multiple sections of the same course. It allows the instructor to only have to edit one site for all of the multiple sections.
Note that:
- Note that Blackboard does not distinguish which students are from which course, so ALL students will be listed alphabetically in the Gradebook (although there are workarounds to sorting students - view an example of how this can be done at the UNF Center for Instruction & Research Technology).
- The Chabot Blackboard System Administrator has no way of knowing whether a site is "crosslisted," so the instructor will have to specify this when they Request Blackboard Course Sites.
- If you originally requested the sites to be setup individually, and you would now like them merged, note that in order to merge them the individual sites will first have to be deleted (a site cannot be "unmerged" - only new blank sites can be created).
- Sites are either merged or they are individual sites - a CRN cannot coexist as part of a merged site and also be part of a merged site.
A developmental site is a temporary Blackboard site for faculty to use for development of a future course or to test out publisher material such as a Course Cartridge. The site is not tied to Class-Web, so there is no concern of students accidentally accessing the course. This is important especially for Course Cartridges, as faculty may need to temporarily make the site available to test functions available only to students.
A developmental course site is typically requested for one of two reasons:
Once the CRN of the actual course becomes available in Class-Web, faculty will need to copy over the content to the "live" site.
Until further notification, there is no current process for deleting/removing sites from the server (Click here for more details on this issue). Until there is a process for doing so, faculty can hide the display of course sites from the My Institution tab (the page you see right after you logged in; they will still display on the "Courses" tab):
If you have any problems, request help (if having problems hiding sites, you'll need to provide your password in the help form).
Back to TopYes. As the course instructor, you have complete control over the naming of all of the navigation buttons in your course. Go to: Control Panel-->Manage Course Menu.
When you follow the steps on how to copy a course site to another course site, you will be able to select areas, such as Announcements, Staff Information or Content areas to copy. The Copy Course function will add content to a course, but it will not remove or replace existing content in any site. Note that if you had a Course Cartridge loaded (general information about Course Cartridges), it should copy over just fine - unless it is copyright-protected (those that typically require students to purchase an access code in addition to the textbook). If you think you have a copyright-protected Course Cartridge loaded, before you attempt any copying, notify the ITC Blackboard help staff.
Below is the breakdown available for copy:
|
Course Material |
Behavior when copied |
|
Content |
Copies course materials, including uploaded files, Learning Units, links, and non-copyrighted Course Cartridge content. Users may also select to include Course Information, Course documents, Assignments and External Links. |
|
Announcements |
All Announcements are copied to the new course. If Assessment links appear in Content Areas, then this option must be selected, or the link to the Assessment will be broken. |
|
Tests, Surveys, and Pools |
All Assessments and Surveys, including questions and options for deploying them are copied. All Pools are copied to the new course. |
|
Calendar |
All Calendar items are copied to the new course. |
|
Collaboration Sessions |
Collaboration Sessions that have been created are copied. This includes the Session Name and the Tool used during the session. |
|
Course Settings |
Course Entry Point, Course Design, Course Banner. More details from the Bb manual... |
|
Group Settings |
Settings include the names of the Groups, the settings for tool availability, and the Discussion Board forum names. |
|
Discussion Board |
Discussion Board forums, including the initial message in the Discussion Board, are copied to the new course. |
|
Gradebook Items and Settings |
Items in the Gradebook, and their settings, such as type, categories, and display options, are copied to the new course. |
|
Staff Information |
All Staff Information is copied to the new course. |
You can also find more details about course copy in the Blackboard manual. However, not all details in the Blackboard manual will apply to our server. Click here for steps on how to copy a course site to another course site.
Back to TopIf you want to copy content from one site to a site that already has content, content will be added but not replaced/removed. While typically you will only be copying into a new, blank site, if you are copying into a site that already has content, the Copy Course function will not remove or replace existing content in any site (it only adds content).
There are multiple reasons why we now have faculty copy over their own Blackboard course sites:
Click here to view the steps to copying over a Blackboard site from one to another.
When your course is copied over to a new site, the default course menu items will remain, even if you did not use them in your source copy site. The default menu items are:
So you may end up with more menu items than you need and will need to remove them. For each course, go to the Control Panel, Course Menu, and delete the unnecessary items. Also, it is strongly recommended that you remove any menu items that you don't plan to use. Otherwise, students may become confused when they click on a menu item and receive the message "Folder Empty." You can always add menu items later on if you decide to use them.
Also, the ordering may be changed, or there may be duplicate numbers. If you tried to reorder items and it does not work, try the following:
If a student does not show up in your roster in Blackboard, then most likely they aren't in the roster in Class-Web. Enrollment data is retrieved directly from Class-Web into Blackboard (more about the upload to Blackboard process). Most likely the student needs to check with Admissions & Records to find out why he isn't enrolled. If you verified that the student is in fact in your Class-Web roster but you still don't see their name in the Blackboard Roster, request assistance.
Back to TopBlackboard actually provides many different "roles," each with different levels of access. Please click on the link below to read about the details of each role, where you will also provide the necessary information to request someone access to your site(s). Please note that we do not enroll anyone in your course site without your prior request/permission - if the person desiring access makes the request, a confirmation will be required by you prior to enrollment.
When you modify your menu items you may notice the option to allow observer access. For the most part, you can ignore this. Observer access is a one-on-one role in which one user is assigned to observer another user's work in the course. For example, the observer role is used more frequently in the K-12 schools, where a parent could view their child's (and only their own child's - one else's) work. If you have a need for this, contact the request this using the "request for access" form, providing both names.
All first and last names in Blackboard are retrieved automatically and directly from the Banner/Class-Web system, which is however you entered your name on your human resource forms. Due to this automation, there is no way from the Blackboard end to change a user's first name, last name, or user name. If a faculty/staff/student would like to change how their name displays in Blackboard, they would need to obtain and submit the appropriate forms from the Chabot Business Office or the CLPCCD Human Resources Department.
Many publishers offer content which can be imported into a Blackboard site to accompany a textbook. Examples of the content may include PowerPoint presentations, chapter summaries, and test banks. To find out if a Blackboard course cartridge is available for any one of the textbooks you use, you can search from the Blackboard website or contact your textbook publisher representative. Please note that cartridges fall into one of two categories:
To obtain/import a cartridge:
"I need to download an ePack (other names may be used) from my publisher, who directed me to a ftp website of a packaged zip file. How do I import this?"
To import an ePack (other names may be used):
Note: The "Import" option in the Pool Manager is for test banks only. Use only if you know how to create these test banks or if directed by your publisher.
The display order of non-permanent announcements is based on their "start-display-date". When you modify an announcement you will notice that it has "Start display on ..." set. If you modify that date/time, you can control the order of announcements. Or simply clear the checkmark, which means the start-display-date will default to the current date and time, and hence the announcement will be considered the newest one. In the Control Panel, click on Announcements.
Details of problem: Upon entering the course, the first page the instructor sees is not the announcements page. This is even after the instructor has set the announcements as the course entry point (CONTROL PANEL > SETTINGS > SET COURSE ENTRY POINT). This may be caused by changes made within the Manage Course Menu (for example, the instructor removes announcements, but then adds them back) and the Blackboard server has yet to recalculate itself.
Solution: Refresh your browser or clear your computer cache. If that doesn't work, previous instances of this problem indicate that the correct default area will display within 24 hours. Also note that even if announcements does not display as the course entry point for your computer, it probably displays correctly for students (on other computers), so you may want to try viewing the course on another computer.
The best solution is to save files in a universal file format so that your students are able to access the files regardless of the software they use or their computer platform. Blackboard recommends saving documents in one of the following three file formats: HTML, RTF (rich text format), or PDF (portable document format). Need suggestions what works best as HTML, RTF, or PDF? Please refer to our File Format Comparison chart. To view the list of supported file types according to Blackboard, go to the recognized file attachments (Blackboard instructor manual). The ITC strongly recommends converting documents to PDF, especially large PowerPoint files. Otherwise, direct your students to download the appropriate 'readers'. You can find out how to add a document at the SDSU Step-by-Step guides - Add Item website.
The Blackboard Learning System recognizes several file types that can be attached to content items and opened in the page or directly in an associated application. To view the list of supported file types, go to the recognized file attachments (Blackboard instructor manual). Theoretically, any type of file can be uploaded to a content item and made available to students. If the file is not of a type recognized by the Blackboard Learning System, users can always download the file and open it locally. However, many students rely on dial-up internet access, so file size should be kept to a minimum. Because we do not currently have a streaming server, only relatively small audio/video files can be posted. You can find out how to add an item at the SDSU Step-by-Step guides - Add Item website.
An instructor wrote: "I Just bought a new computer at home and it has MS
Office 2007 and Vista. When I try to email my files [i.e. via Groupwise] to
myself at work, they won't
open. The system here doesn't recognize the program. I try to open and I get "do
I want these in Turkish" or something."
Suggestion: When you save the document at home, save as Word 2003."
If you have any other issues with general software & Vista, contact the
Chabot College Computer
Support.
If you are in a Content Area and you do not see the "Add Item" button, somehow it has been deselected from the list of available tools. To make it available again:
Some students may be clicking on "Add File" rather than "Send File" function within the digital drop box. The "Add File" function simply allows a student to "add a file" to their personal drop box. Once the file is added to the personal drop box, the prompt display will read: "Posted on this date and this time," but the file was not sent. If a student wants to send a file to the instructor, the "Send File" function must be selected. A new feature in Bb6 is "Assignment", and it may be used in place of the digital drop box. Read more about "Assignments" in the Blackboard Manual.
The Assignment Tool has been available to faculty since we acquired version 6.3, but some faculty do not know about it because it is "hidden" within each content area (go into any content area (i.e. Course Materials), click on the drop-down menu from the toolbar, and you will see "Assignment."
When deciding which tool to use, it is important to establish the final outcome should be for both the students and instructor. This decision rests with each instructor and at times a combination of both tools can be used to achieve the desired goal. The differences are stated briefly below; for a more extensive comparison, go to Worcester Polytechnic Institute's page "Digital Dropbox vs. Assignment Manager - which one to use?"
For more information, including sample scenarios and Flash demonstrations of how you might use each tool, go to Assignments vs. the Digital Drop Box: A Blackboard Learning Services Tip Sheet.
Discussion board postings do not have to be read individually. Here's a short cut to read those messages: enter the discussion forum in question and click on the "Show Options" tab in the upper right-hand corner of your screen to reveal a row of expanded option icons. Place a check in the box next to all the messages you'd like to read, and then select the "Collect" icon from the row of expanded options. All of the checked messages will appear on your screen at once, you may read them or print the entire session.
The answer is "it depends." For video any longer than a few seconds, our district would really need to save video files to a streaming server, which we don't currently have. If the video clip is not very long, you could check to see if the file type is on the list of file types supported by Blackboard and then try to add the file within a content area. However, even if you can add the file to Blackboard, note that the display area will be very small, which will not allow too much detail. Actually, I would recommend that you visit Media Services to find out if you could get it duplicated for your students. That way, they could have the benefit of viewing in full screen and you wouldn't have to worry about students who only have dial-up.
If you are considering creating a PowerPoint presentation to include in BlackBoard, here are some things you should consider in advance.
Please check with the Chabot College Disabled Student Resource Center and/or the instructional designer for the latest software options available at Chabot. For your reference, you can also review information provided by other colleges below.
ADA says that institutions must make "reasonable accomodations" for disabled students. Disabled students includes hearing impaired, visually impaired (those who might use a screen reader on the text), learning disabled, motor impaired (text files are relatively easy to access), etc.
There are many ways to make accommodations. For starters, the instructor can just type up a summary of the audio content (such as in the PowerPoint notes area. Scripts can also keep the developer focused, which makes for a better performance. For assistance with PowerPoint, contact the Instructional Assistant in the Hub.
If a pre-done script isn't feasible (e.g., direct lecture recording), then use voice-to-text like Dragon Naturally Speaking (available in the High-Tech lab of the Chabot College Disabled Student Resource Center), a voice recognition program that makes it possible for students who cannot use a keyboard to write papers without assistance.
Or, you could use voice-recognition / transcription software to produce a text transcript of the audio. Impatica OnCue software (not currently available at Chabot) lets you synch up the audio, the slides, and the transcript into a navigable java version of the presentation.
Camtasia Studio 4 (not currently available at Chabot) and it has the capability of putting the 'notes' section of PowerPoint slides into the output movies as scrolling on-screen text.
For narrated PowerPoints, Articulate (not currently available at Chabot) works especially well. It allows the user to view the written notes, listen to the narration, both or neither. Additionally, the software compresses the file substantially, preserves any embedded audio, video and other links and provides an attractive navigation among and between slides.
For more information about ADA standards, contact the High-Tech Center Training Unit (Foothill-DeAnza colleges).
The Adaptive Release tool allows instructors to control availability of content using criteria to provide/deny access to subject resources such as lecture materials, quizzes and discussion board forums. This allows teaching staff to provide flexible learning pathways for individuals or groups, and/or structure resource availability according to purpose (eg. students should access materials in a particular order to complete a task). The University of Melbourne has created some animated guides:
You can find complete steps on creating quizzes/tests in the "Blackboard Online Learning Team" course site that you should see when you login to Blackboard (if you don't see this site, submit a help request. If you want one-on-one help, you can make an appointment with the Instructional Designer.
Back to TopYes. Try one of the following:
So you created your test in the Test Manager or in a Content Area (such as Course Documents) but your students don't see the quiz/test? While the tests may be "deployed" in the content area they won't be available to students until you:
The steps:
- If you want to select a time frame for the quiz/test to display, select the dates you want it to display (if you want it to display immediately, and "Display After" displays today's date, change it to yesterday's date.
- If you want the quiz/test to display indefinitely, you can also not use date limitations at all. Make sure "Display Until" has no checkmarks. But note that when you no longer want the quiz/test to display to students, you'll want to make sure to click "No" to step #5.
You can find complete steps on creating quizzes/tests in the "Blackboard Online Learning Team" course site that you should see when you login to Blackboard (if you don't see this site, contact the use our Student Help Request Form. If you want one-on-one help, you can make an appointment with the Instructional Designer.
Back to TopScenario: A student who says he/she took a test and received a grade afterward. However, her instructor is saying that when he/she checked the Gradebook, all he/she saw for the student was the padlock (this was weeks after the student completed the test).
What may have happened: Most of the time this happens because the test is setup to allow "multiple attempts" and the student for whatever reason goes into it a second time (maybe as a way to check his/her grade). Simply going back to the quiz wipes out the previous attempt/grade. What compounds the problem is that when a student enters the assessment for a second time, they see "Assessment already completed. Click OK to review results or take the assessment again." when it should probably say: "Assessment already completed. Click OK to review results or click here to clear your grade and take the assessment again."
Workaround: Unfortunately, the last attempt cannot be recovered. The instructor will need to clear the attempt for that test. It is strongly recommend that for each assessment allowing multiple attempts, that the instructions include a warning which makes it perfectly clear to the students that a subsequent attempt will erase the previous attempt. It is recommended that students check their grades from the My Institution tab, Tools menu (upper-left hand side of screen, before they enter their course sites).
Students may be 'kicked' out of a quiz for all kinds of reasons, such as:
To reset a quiz within Blackboard go to: Control Panel -->Gradebook"-->Spreadsheet View.
When the Gradebook loads, locate the numerical score for the test and student. Click on the score (the numerical score is a hidden link) to pull up a copy of your student's completed exam. In the upper right-hand corner of the exam, locate the button that reads, "Clear Attempt." Clicking on that button will allow your student to take that test over. To prevent future problems, you may want to provide students tips for successful test taking (Word doc).
For more details about downloading the Gradebook, refer to the Download Gradebook page of the Blackboard Instructor Manual.
If you downloaded a copy of your Gradebook (steps above), you can now modify or add one or more items as needed (such as adding a test or changing a student's score), and then upload the file to make the changes to the "live" Gradebook.
You can find more details in the directions for uploading to the Gradebook as per the Blackboard Instructor Manual
Back to TopIf the Gradebook does not calculate your grades the way you want it to, we recommend that you download the Gradebook from Blackboard, then open the file in Excel and set up your formulas they way you want. You can then upload this file back to the Gradebook with the appropriate totals and weights. We also recommend that to eliminate confusion, you name the columns appropriately.
Back to TopMany Blackboard users have asked for this feature but Blackboard does not yet have it available. One Blackboard Administrator suggested a workaround that worked in verion 6.1 (adding a gradebook item worth -20 score/points, and then enter a the lowest score (with a minus sign) for each student) but unfortunately it does not work in our current version, 6.2. Several colleges have asked for this ability in a future version of Blackboard. We encourage you to make enhancement suggestions to Blackboard.
As soon as student takes the test, a checkmark appears in greadebook. For those students who have not taken the test, nothing appears in gradebook.
At the moment, no. One workaround is to give your fake student a grade equal to the negative sum of the entire class for the assignment. This will set the average to zero.
As you'll notice in the key of the Gradebook (left side of screen), the exclamation (!) normally means "needs grading." If the student completed the test but there is still an exclamation showing, that indicates that there is a time limit set on the test and the student went over time.
Go to the University of Scrantron Blackboard Support tutorial page.
Back to TopThis problem has been reported to Blackboard, but in the meantime, a workaround is to make a category that you will not use for the course 100 %. Then, back in the Spreadsheet View of the Gradebook, hide the column from student view.
Unfortunately, the answer (for our current version 6.2.3.23) is no. This has been requested as an enhancement for several years by many other colleges, but at this time we have not been informed of any improvements.
However, note that the "Weight" [per item] that students see is different from the "Total" and "Weighted Total" columns that you see in your Gradebook, and you do have control over whether those display to students (which are displayed as horizontal columns). To do so:
| Class Average | Weight | Total | Weighted Total | |
| Can I hide from students? | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Is this a column in my Gradebook? | No* | No* | Yes | Yes |
| How is this displayed to students? | Column | Column | Row | Row |
*You can view the Class Average & Weight by clicking on a Gradebook item, then Item Information.
Due to our user limit license and current setup, we currently are only able to accommodate site requests for courses that are in CLASS-Web and that have a course registration number. We do not have the extended setup to accommodate non-instructional purposes, such as to hold online committee discussions. In order to utilize Blackboard for committees, clubs, or other non-instructional purposes, our district would need to purchase the full Blackboard Academic Suite as well as a portal system. Such system is utilized at Cal State East Bay (you can click on the yellow tab "Guest Access to Orgs & Clubs," select a club, and you'll see how the options may often "Enroll" - so presumably anyone in the CSU EB system could easily enroll themselves!).
Until there are upgrades/developments at Chabot (click here to find out who to contact), you have the option to use the CLPCCD Discussion Board that is available to all employees and agents of the Chabot-Las Positas Community College District. The benefits of this discussion board include:
While you should find all of the directions you need at the CLPCCD Discussion Board, please note that the first time you log in, use "newuser" as the password (not your current Groupwise password). To find out about setting up a discussion forum for your group or for more information, contact Katherine Tollefsen at help@clpccd.org.
Both state and federal law require community colleges to operate all programs and activities in a manner which is accessible to students with disabilities. Accordingly, as the system develops its capacity for creation of technology based instructional resources and the delivery of distance learning; it must proceed with the needs of all students in mind, including the unique needs of students with disabilities. More details can be found at the Distance Education Access Guidelines.
Please check each of the following resources:
When the district adopted Blackboard at Chabot College, it was decided by the District-wide Distance Education / Blackboard Committee (consisting of faculty, staff, and administrators) that for various reasons, training/orientation would be required for all instructors who would like to teach with Blackboard. For instructors who have already taught with Blackboard at another college, we have found that due to the wide range of versions (as of Fall 06 we are 6.2 while other colleges may be 7.1), level of support, and login procedures (do you upload students or does ITS?) at other colleges, it is necessary to orient faculty to our those aspects specific to Chabot College. We are keenly aware of the urgency for which you and your students may face in accessing content, taking tests, etc, and with our very limited support staff we want to be sure everyone knows how/where to get help. We also find that most instructors welcome the one-on-one opportunity to to review basic features with the instructional designer in a practice shell for which they will have access to indefinitely.
Many faculty request that their student TA's be given access to their Blackboard course site(s) for purposes such as assisting in discussion forum responses or posting content. Due to student confidentiality & privacy rights, student TA's should be limited to the student or Course Builder 'roles' / level of access, as detailed on our form Request for a student TA / staff / instructor to access my Blackboard site.
The Instructional Technology Center training resources are such that we can only train/assist Chabot faculty on their Blackboard sites (or staff who directly or indirectly assist with Blackboard). Student Assistants or TA's should receive Blackboard training/ assistance from the instructor of the course. There are many online resources available to anyone who would like to learn Blackboard. We offer a centralized list of Blackboard guides.
However, beyond training resources, it is
important to note that only the instructor(s) assigned to a particular course
should have access to confidential student information, such as grades,
as well as the instructor username and password. Student Assistants are really only supposed
to be assisting in their subject (not necessarily Blackboard). Anything more is
an agreement between the instructor and the student assistant. This policy is
similar to the district-wide policy on CLASS-Web for faculty: "ONLY THE PRIMARY
INSTRUCTOR is allowed to enter the grades for a class. If you are team teaching,
you must work with your colleague in getting the grades entered into CLASS-Web.
This also means that no one else can use Web for Faculty to enter your grades."
If any of personal student data are compromised - the instructor, college and
District could be held liable of any breeches.
Please visit our page on instructional technologies for faculty to research.
If you are having problems logging into CLASS-Web first make sure you are aware of the standard login information (username and password). Basically, Otherwise, you should be able to log in using your SSN or W number and your birthdate in the format MMDDYY. If you are still having problems logging in, please contact HR at 925-485-5238 (PLEASE NOTE that this phone number is for faculty/staff only; students need to call Admissions & Records at (510) 723-6700).
At the December 4, 2007 Distance Education Committee meeting, the committee agreed that in addition to the current or future term sites, faculty should have immediate access to two years worth of old course sites. Therefore, during the winter recess we will be hiding Fall 2005 sites and older. So when faculty return, they will have access to the following sites:
Just to clarify, sites are simply hidden (not removed). In the long run, we need to remove old sites as well, but Blackboard has yet to provide us a solution for creating archives that contain student work even after students have been removed from the system.
Yes. Please go to the list of known issues.
Send an email to suggestions@blackboard.com.
I would like to be able to [do something] with Bb that is currently not available. There are many requests from faculty for Blackboard uses and enhancements that our current Learning System and user license does not accommodate. Of course, most enhancements have associated costs. If enhancements are available, and the district has the funds, a decision to make such changes would be required by the District-wide Distance Education/Blackboard Committee which has been co-chaired by the ITS Chief Technology Officer.
Assuming you have been directed to this page because you already communicated your request with the ITC staff (if not, please do so first at Blackboard Faculty Request form), you are also encouraged to contact members of the Distance Education Curriculum Support Committee and/or the Technology Committee.
Additional suggestions from an online instructor 3/27/2006: