|
Preparation for Summer 2008 Blackboard Courses
To All
Faculty,
Summer
Blackboard courses have been created and are now accessible
to faculty who have been assigned to them (if you do not see
your course, see “C” below).
Please read the items below. They will save you and your
students some headaches later on.
A. Let your students know if you are not using Bb
Most NEIU
students have taken courses that use Bb and will likely
expect that your course(s) will also. If you are not
planning to use Bb, please let your students know.
B. If you do not make your Bb course available, students cannot see it
By far, the
biggest
support issue for students was that they were not able to
see their Bb courses when they logged into Bb.
In nearly every case, the problem
was that the instructor had not made the Bb course available
for viewing by students.
You will
notice that the links to your Summer ‘08 courses are
followed by (Unavailable). This means that
your course is invisible to students--although you can see
it. Until you make your
course available, your students will not be able to see it.
This allows you to work on your course and then
make it available to students when you are ready for them to
see it. To make the course available go to the course
Control Panel and select:
Settings
> Course Availability > Yes.
A narrated
tutorial walking you through the process is available at
http://www.neiu.edu/~ctl/blackboard.html.
C. Make sure that you are assigned to teach the course in Banner
If a course
that you are planning to teach in Summer ’08 is not showing
up in your Blackboard list of courses that you are teaching,
it is because the course is listed in Banner as taught by
“TBA” or by another instructor. Contact your department to
make sure that you are assigned as the course instructor in
Banner. After you are assigned as the instructor in Banner,
you should be able to see your course in Bb by the next day.
D. Accessing Bb from within NEIUport
When you
are in NEIUport, you can access Bb directly by
clicking on the Blackboard icon (next to the e-mail icon)
without an additional log in.
E. Copying course content from a previous semester to a Summer 2008
course
Content
(including tests) from previous semesters’ Bb courses can be
copied into your Summer ’08 courses. This is done by going
into the previous course’s Control Panel and using the
Course Copy feature in the previous course to copy the
desired content into your Summer ’08 course. A narrated
tutorial walking you through the process is available at
http://www.neiu.edu/~ctl/blackboard.html.
F. If you wish to combine Bb sections
Some
instructors teach multiple sections of the same course and
wish to combine the enrollments of all sections into a
single Bb course. Please note combining enrollments will
mean that all of the students will be listed in your
Gradebook alphabetically—not by section (the next version of
Blackboard will correct this). If you wish to have multiple
sections combined, send an e-mail request to etlt@neiu.edu
with the subject “Combine Sections-Summer 08” and include
the information below.
Requests for combining Bb course sections must be received
by June 3, 2008.
-
Name of instructor(s)
-
Name and number of course (e.g. PSYC AGED 400)
-
Course sections to be combined (e.g. 01, 02)
G. Students who withdraw or do not pay fees are “disabled” from your Bb
course
Students
who withdraw from a course or who are dropped due to
non-payment of fees or other reasons are “disabled” from the
Bb course. This means that their information remains in the
course’s database; however, they will disappear from your Bb
course roster and grade book and will be unable to see your
course in Bb until they are reinstated. Student work and
grades completed prior to being dropped will reappear when
they are reinstated in the course.
H. If you have questions about
Bb-related items
If you have
questions regarding these or any other Blackboard-related
items, please send an e-mail message to
etlt@neiu.edu or contact the Center for Teaching and
Learning at ext. 4467.
I. If your students have questions or issues.
If your
students have questions or issues regarding Blackboard or
other NEIU technology that you are not able to answer, have
them contact Student Computing Services at (773) 442-4390 or
at
scs@neiu.edu
Learning
Technologies Team
Anthony
Piņa
Paul Heydenburg
Diane Gritton
Heli Gandhi |
