I have created a journal assignment where students submit four journal entries every two weeks. Unfortunately, I cannot manipulate the settings to allow the students to see journals from the previous month. I, as the instructor, can select a link that takes me back to February and January journal entries, but students do not have this feature. How can a student learn and see improvement over time if they can't access previous journal entries? Have I missed a setting?
Hello Ann,
You probably will not like my answer, because I certainly do not. Just as you have experienced, instructors can look at journal entries for the previous months, but students cannot. The journal gives two options for indexing: weekly and monthly. If the weekly option is selected, students can only see their journal entries for the week. So choosing monthly is best, except when Tuesday is the last day of a month and Wednesday is the first. Students simply do not have the same navigational options as instructors in the journal tool.
I have submitted a suggestion to Blackboard concerning this and urge others to do likewise: http://www.blackboard.com/Contact-Us/Feedback/Suggest-Product-Enhancements.aspx
Good luck,
Jason Thiede
Ann and Jason,
The problem with students not being able to see previously indexed journal entries (previous week or previous month) is a bug in 9.1 that is identified as AS-145189. It is fixed in 9.1 Service Pack 4, which was released at the end of last year.
Mike
That's great to hear, Mike.
Thanks!
Just an FYI. My understanding, based on communication with Blackboard support, is that this was not a bug, but a feature that did not exist.
Excerpts from the support team (September, 2010):
"I'm afraid the capability you asked about, allowing students to see their older journal entries, is not possible if you want to keep the journals private."
"If you would like to suggest that Blackboard add the capability, you can use the below link to suggest a product enhancement."
Thanks again, Mike.
Hmmm, I've tried both the workaround that were previously suggested to make journal indexing appear :
1. Make a post from the previous month 'new' in order to force the month to appear
2. Make a comment on a post from a previous month .. in order to force it to appear
Neither of these work on private journals indexed monthly.
Does anyone know if I make the journals 'public' if the index will appear for more than ONE month?
I have heard that setting the journal to public will allow students to access all of their previous journal entries. I have not tested it since journals are generally intended to be private at our school.
Thanks,
Jason
Sharon,
Do you know what Blackboard version your school is on? The problem with students not being able to access old journal entries appears to be fixed in 9.1 Service Pack 4.
Yep - we're on SP3 on BB9.1. I just need some sort of workaround to tide us over for 1 more month.
Hi Sharon,
We applied AS152670 patch and only needed to be down for an hour to fix this issue. This saved us, because many instructors had just implemented the journal because we just upgraded to 9.1. All journal entries show now.
We will upgrade to SP4 in May.
Ann
Thanks. Am waiting to hear back from Blackboard as to whether there is a suitable patch. It's weird that the index works in the Group Journal tool, but not in the individual private Journal.
I heard form Blackboard - at present there is no fix for 9.1 SP3 (including SP2)
however once you get to SP4 ..>> AS-152670 is a patch for this issue however it only works with release 9.1.482.2, there is also a patch for release 9.1.452.0
thanks all
:-( I do not see that it has been fixed, as we are also having this issue, and we are running SP 4. Will this issue be fixed in SP 6?
Thank you!
Diane
Diane,
Is your server at blackboard.edgewood.edu? The "installation details" link on the login page for that server identifies it as "build 9.1.452.8", which is not 9.1 SP4. Rather, it is 9.1 SP1 Hotfix 1.