Educators and Designers

Question set and scores

Derek Blair — Sun, 19 May 2013 01:57:26 GMT

I noticed when you use a question set for tests, the question set requires you to change the points allocated to the questions. If you have allocated the points to the questions why does the question set require you to allocate points again? Now you say if they are worth one point then just allocate the question set to one point also. In most cases this is O.K. but if you have a question that has multiple points then this gets changed when you use this question in a questions set. An example would be, you have questions that can give you 2 points if you get both the correct answer. All other questions are worth 1 point. Now if you try to use the 2 point question in a question set with many 1 point questions you have a problem. Either you up all questions to 2 points or the 2 point question becomes 1 point with a possible point value of .5 if you get half the answer wrong.

Is there any way to change this?

Blackboard Assignments not displaying in new calendar

Jeff Scott — Sat, 18 May 2013 16:30:34 GMT

Our blackboard servers were upgraded to v11 over the weekend. In 2 of 3 of my courses all the assignments show up in the new calendar. I have one class where the assignment do not display in the calender. I have tried change the due dates and creating new assignments. Nothing I have tried makes the class assignments display in the calender. Anyone have any suggestions?

Current methods of internal linking

Jim Nielson — Fri, 10 May 2013 21:04:34 GMT

Okay, it's 2013. Can I get an update on internal linking in BB?

For instance, is there a way for me to create internal links from one content area to a page in another that won't break when the course is copied over?

If a prof wants to create a course-specific css file for some of his or her content and call it from their own html in files they create in a content area, how can they reference that css file in a way that will not break when he course is copied or promoted from dev to live?

If BB really still hasn't implemented a method permalinks that stay working when the course is copied, what are the current hacks and best practices out there for dealing with these barriers?

Thanks in advance!!

Dr Jim

How do I reset permissions

sophia baisie — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:58:43 GMT

I accidental removed all permissions on a course folder in Learn 9. I'm concerned that the course I'm building wont be visible to the instructor or the students. How do I enable permission on the folder again? As at now, the permissions icon is gone from this folder (and sub folders) and the drop down menu for course files only show OPEN and 360 view for this folder.

How do I enable permissions again?

Import into test pool

Greg Frederick — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:21:49 GMT

Can you import test questions from a csv files directly into the pool manager of a course? We are using 9.1 SP10. If so what is the format?

Thanks
Greg

Image caption

Jennifer Page — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:13:42 GMT

I'm working with an instructor who wants to include images in her Blackboard Learn (9.1) class. When she does Build Content >> Image, she is given the option to fill in a field called Long Description. This description gets automatically displayed under the image, like a caption.

However, when she adds an image in a text-editor box, there does not seem to be a field like this, that automatically adds a caption under the image. She knows that she can just type the caption under the image in the text-editor, but she would like to know if there is a way to "attach" the caption to the picture, as she can when she adds the image by doing Build Content >> Image.

I hope this question make sense!

Creating a Merged Section and ReEnabling the Child Sections

Andrew Esposito — Wed, 15 May 2013 22:11:58 GMT

Currently, the Merge Enrollments tool does a lovely job assembling a group of sections into a single master course shell. However, there are a number of use cases where a faculty member would want to re-enable the child courses and reinstate them as fully functioning sections while keeping their enrollments merged into a master course.

For example a very large lecture and lab course with many recitations each taught by a different TA. In this case the lecture would be one section in and of itself with say 400 students. Each lab section would also be its own section with its own TA instructor and assignments. And then the lab sections might also be merged into a master lab section to include more global lab assessments which everyone needs to have in a consistent fashion.

However the way the merge enrollments tool functions, once we merge sections to create a 'master lab section' we then need to re-enable the child courses. But even doing that isn't a good solution. The links students see on their course lists are identical for both the merged and child sections and content can't be copied or managed effectively into or out of child sections. It seems as though Blackboard has arbitrarily decided that a child course would never need to be used if it is part of a merge and disables many necessary functions.

I'm looking for any insight into working around this: fixing the links so they read correctly, enabling the full set of content move/copy/upload functions, etc.

Enterprise Survey's Course ID

Bradon Lewis — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:09:04 GMT

We are trying to pull some data from Enterprise Survey's and the course ID's do not match any information on Courses.

Does anywhere know where it is pulling these 5 digit numbers?

Grading by Points Possible

Patrick Hargon — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:20:48 GMT

Hi,

I'm working with an instructor who pointed out that the Grade Center "Total" column is displaying the incorrect grade when he choose to display percentages.

His grading system is to take the total number of points a student has earned in the course and divide it by the total possible points. For instance, a student scoring 106 out of 120 points should earn a grade of 88%. However, the totals column is displaying a grade of 95.33%.

Here's what I think is going on: The Grade Center is calculating an average of the student's scores (taking 5 grades, for instance, adding them up and dividing by 5), but this yields a different number than dividing the earned points from the possible points for the course.

Here's my question: Is there a way to set the totals column so it can display averages based on this professor's scoring system?

Thanks,

Patrick

instructions for multiple test questions in Learn

Amy Chapman — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:57:29 GMT

In the "test" tool in Learn, is there a way to provide instructions that apply to multiple test questions so that you don't have to type the same instructions over and over again in the question text for different questions? For example:

"For questions 1-7, conjugate the verb in the imperfect"

Blackboard:GRADE CENTER; Viewing the column page 7 scrolling down to view all the students_i do not know how to scroll down

melvin david — Mon, 13 May 2013 00:59:41 GMT

Hi:

I am having difficuty with the following:

1. In blackboad, when viewing the test columns, how do i scroll to the extreme right side of the page to view the latest test items?

2. Similarly in this grade Center: I can only view 3/4 's of the page-how do i scroll down? I looked for the arrows, on the right to move across, and i looked on the left for the arrows, to go down, but but i could not find them.

thanks, mel

Calender in SP10

Carrie Nilles — Sun, 12 May 2013 02:31:39 GMT

Is there any way to remove older classes from the class list in the new calender interface? I have tried removing it from tool availability in the course itself but that does not seem to make a difference.

Discussion Board automatically opening all Replies in a Thread

Lauren Laudato — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:33:37 GMT

Dr. C,

We have several faculty members using the discussion board where the "thread" is the question itself and then students all "reply" to the thread with their own answer. This makes for many many replies instead of many threads.

The issue that we are running into since we upgraded to SP11 is that when a student (or instructor) opens the thread or any reply to read the replies, all of the replies automatically expand and then become "read". Is there anyway to get around them to be marked as read so the instructor/student can still have the "unread"?

Thank you!

-Lauren Laudato
Duquesne University

Description Field in Grade Center

Kate Stewart — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:23:16 GMT

The way our courses are set up it that there is a discussion question and an assignment each week. We use adaptive release to prevent students from seeing the upcoming items. We want to try and use the Description Field for that item's grade column to put the question or assignment in so students can see what's coming up, but can't submit anything.

The problem we are running into is that there is a 2,000 character limit and some of our questions and assignments are longer than that.

Does anyone know of a way around this?

Calendar Tool in Groups

Dana Oliver — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:21:10 GMT

I created a manual enroll group and enabled the "Calendar" tool for the group. But, when I enter the group as a student or instructor, I am not able to see any access to a calendar. Am I missing something?

Bb 9.1 SP 11

Thanks!

assignments

Stanislaw Paul MAJ — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:29:24 GMT

how do you ensure the lecturer is informed by email when a student submits an assignment?

we use BB9

if someone could answer asap would be appreciated

MEDBUG

Douglas Koch — Mon, 13 May 2013 10:38:31 GMT

I was wondering if the MEDBUG was still an active group. I work at a medical school and would like to be involved with a community of similar users. I tried emailing the contact for the group, but have not heard back.

Audio/video Quicktime plugin not working in Chrome / Android

Josh Wilson — Fri, 10 May 2013 21:35:41 GMT

Hi Folks,

Thanks for your help with this.

I'm an assistant prof. at Kansai Gaidai University in Japan. We have Blackboard Learnhere and recently upgraded to version 9.1.82223.0. I'm writing to you with this problem instead of our sys admin because the university administration seems to think it's impossible to solve, or perhaps they would have to pay for troubleshooting support.

The problem that I'm having is that files requiring the quicktime plugin are not playing in Chrome and Android. Instead a "Additional Quicktime components required" message appears and users are directed to an entirely unhelpful Apple page (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/resources/components.html?os=OSX&ctype=bff75358&csubtype=bff7540e). So there appears to be a plugin missing. As Bb is certified for Chrome, I know this is just a bug of some sort. Can you help me figure how to fix it so that I can explain it to my administrators?

Thanks much!

Display student status/rights using Adaptive Release Rules and "not" Operator?

Juan Leon — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:30:22 GMT

I would like display content to students in my course based on degrees of status they have earned through accomplishing tasks. These degrees of status build upon each other so that a "visitor" has a certain amount of access, an "auditor" has the visitor's level of access and more, and a "participant" has full access.

In addition, I'd like to be able to place items indicating a user's status on content areas in such a way that the items display in accord with the status a user has: Visitors see the "You are viewing this as a Visitor" item, Auditors see the "You are viewing this as an Auditor" item and so on.

The problem I'm facing is that the tasks students complete to earn different levels of access build on each other, so that a student who has earned Auditor status will also be shown the Visitor status item unnecessarily. (I only want to display the "highest" status to the student.)

Here's an example: if students mark a course Terms and Conditions item as Reviewed in order to earn Visitor status, and if they have to do that plus complete a quiz to earn Auditor status, then it seems any area on which I have those two status indicator items will always show the Visitor status along with the Auditor status to any Auditor. The Auditor satisfies the Adaptive Release rules of both items and will see both items. But I'd like that Auditor to see their Auditor status alone.

In short, I need to create an Adaptive Release rule something like the following for this hypothetical Auditor: "Display if course Terms and Conditions are marked Reviewed AND quiz is submitted."

While the Adaptive Release rule on the item displaying Visitor status would have to be something like: "Display if course Terms and Conditions are marked Reviewed and NOT quiz is submitted."

Is this use of Adaptive Release possible in some way--or is there a work around to achieve similar results?

Thank you.

Very Long Tests in Bb

Lauren Laudato — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:00:51 GMT

Hello Dr. C,

We have a faculty member at Duquesne who has created a test in Blackboard with about 75 or so questions. Within her test she has around 20 questions including pictures.

Whenever her students take the exam some of the pictures within the questions are not loading for some students but some students everything loads fine. Her students are taking the exam in a lab setting and all at one time. She is experiencing problems with the exam in some classes and not others. All students are taking the test on Internet Explorer

We think that it may be due to the fact that she has many questions loading on one single page instead of each question on its own page. Is there any advice that you can offer us as far as designing the test differently or is this possibly an issue with the pictures loading?

Any suggestion is appreciated! Thank you

-Lauren Laudato

Blackboard SP 11: How to Hide Course from Global Navigation?

Katie Skapin — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:47:30 GMT

Hello there!

I was wondering if someone's found a way to edit the list of courses that is displayed by default on the Courses page of the Global Navigation drop-down. I know you can hide courses in the My Courses module/ on the Courses tab module, but I have yet to figure it out for the Global Navigation menu.

I ask because we have a large amount of Instructors who forget to make their courses unavailable at the end of the semester, so I'm looking for workaround for students in order to make the list more manageable.

Thanks!

Weighted Totals and Excel

Alexandra Janney — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:23:53 GMT

Hi,

Why is there a slight difference between the Weighted Totals in Bb 9.1 SP 6 and Excel calculations? The total points are the same in both Bb and Excel, but the weights are off be decimals. Those decimals may cause the differerence in letter grade for students.

Thank you,

Alexandra

Failed to grant read permission to the attached file for target course

Patty Anderson — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:46:46 GMT

This is an error message that is received when copying files from one semester to another. Everything I find says this was fixed with Service Pack 5. We are using Blackboard Learn 9.1 with service pack 11 or 12.

weighted columns

Wayne Debly — Sat, 11 May 2013 03:45:00 GMT

I am starting to use bb9.1. I was a user of bb ce8. I am used to writing formulae for calculating final grades These formulae were similar to Excel. Now I cannot seem to figure out weighted columns. If someone could explain how to create a weighted column to solve this a simple example I would be very appreciative. I am only going to use 2 marks.

Grade A = 45/60 mark in grade book shows 45

Grade B = 73/81 mark in grade book shows 73

I want a final mark out of 100. Grade A counts for 60% of final mark and Grade B counts for 40% of final grade.

So in the Grade A I set weight for 60% and in Grade B I set weight for 40%

Final Grade reads 55.44 instead of 80.18 (45/60*60 + 73/81*40 = 81.05)

Thanks

Wayne

jmol.js

Clifton Franklund — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:19:18 GMT

I am developing a new course (for me) on proteins. I would like to embed interactive molecular models using the free jmol applet. Can this be done within Blackboard Learn 9.1. If so, how do I proceed?