I am trying to get my blog assignment done on BB and there is a link the teacher has posted that I should be able to click on, which takes me to the blogsite where I can post and respond... it worked last week fine, but this week when I click on the link, the cursor stays on the current screen and there is an error which reads "Blog content item not available." What do I do?
Hi Maddy,
The first thing I would do is to contact your instructor if you haven't already. The message seems to indicate that the blog tool may be unavailable to students.
Sincerely,
Eric
We have similar experience. We were trying to figure why students are not able to view the blog. Saying that the content is not available. We have checked the settings and the settings have indicated the blog is available for students to post their entries.
We plan to submit a ticket with Blackboard about this.
We also notice a problem with Wiki as well - we also have Learning Object Lx Campus Pack for Blog, Wiki, Journal and it seems they will try to use Campuse Pack Wiki even though I choose Wiki under Interactive Tools. So not sure why this is happening.
Shannon
Shannon,
Unfortunately, there are several different possible overlapping "availability" settings, and it sometimes takes a little digging to find the right one.
If students are not seeing a blog at all, the troubleshooting things I would check (in order) are:
1) "Control panel > Customization > Tool Availability > Blogs > Available" (This is the tool itself)
2) "Control panel > Customization > Tool Availability > Blog > Available in content area" (This is the availability of links from a content area to the blogs tool)
3) "Course Menu > Tools > Blogs [not hidden]" (If you hide the 'Blogs" link in the course menu tools area from the students, or hide the Tools menu area itself, then students will not be able to get to the hidden tools)
If you're having trouble just with a particular log, I'd check:
4) "Control panel > Course Tools > Blogs > [blog name]" > Blog is available (Individual blogs can be made unavailable so make sure the specific blog is available and does not have date restrictions that would prevent it from being visible)
If students are seeing a link to the blog in a content area, but are getting an error message about content being unavailable when they click on it, then:
5) Go to the content area where students are getting the unavailable error message, and look at the specific link they're clicking on. Does it point directly to the blog, or is it a "course link" that's actually pointing to a blog link in another part of the course? We've definitely seen cases where a course link to a tool or discussion board is available, but the tool or discussion board itself is not available. In that case, the students can see the link but get an error when they click on it.
There are other possible cause to check on, but it's tough to list every possibility without being able to actually see exactly what's going on and how the blogs are configured. Also, I'm not sure what impact having the Learning Object Campus Pack tools installed might have on the "native" Blackboard tools.
Mike