This guide is intended to give faculty a quick way to get started in Blackboard Learn at Springfield Technical Community College. 

Step 3: Basic Blackboard Navigation

Step 4: Edit Modes & Preview User

Viewing Content in Blackboard 

Instructional Advice

• • While in Preview User mode, your name in the Grade Center will be: previewuser_lastname

  • Please be aware that if you send an email or participate in discussions while in the preview user role, students will see the preview username, not the faculty’s name.

  • Your preview user appears in the course roster until you delete the Preview Student User data

  • The Preview User feature isn't available for students 

  • To submit grades using the "Submit Grades to Registrar," you must delete your Student Preview users from your Grde Center to prevent errors.

Step 5: Using the Content Editor in Blackboard

Learning Module Settings

Follow the following instructions to edit settings or availability after you have created a learning module.

• 1. Default Content View

     • Learning Modules display both an icon and text by default. If you wish to turn off icons, select Text Only. Do not turn off the text. Icons will only display.

     • Select Change Default Content View for All New and Existing Sub-folders and Items maintain settings

  2. Learning Module Options

     • • If you wish to have students only access content where they start with the first page and progress through each page according, choose Enforce Sequential Viewing of the Learning Module (Not Recommended)

       • If you wish to have the module open in another window or tab, click Yes. By default, No is selected. 

  3. Standard Options

  4. Set the visibility of the folder to students:

     • Permit Users to View this Content: Select Yes to allow students to view the web link, No if not needed

     • Track Number of Views: Select Yes to record numbers of times students view the link, No if not needed

     • Enter the date and time the content will be available.

  5. Table of Content

     • Show Table of Contents to Users

       • Select Yes to Show, No to Hide.

     • Hierarchy Display

       • Display table of content with a prefix including letter or number

  6. Select Submit

Folder Settings

Follow the following instructions to edit settings or availability after you have created a folder. 

 Default Content View

• • • Folders display both an icon and text by default. If you wish to turn off icons, select Text Only. Do not turn off the text. Icons will only display.

    • Select Change Default Content View for All New and Existing Sub-folders and Items maintain settings

• 1. Standard Options

  2. Set the visibility of the folder to students:

     • Permit Users to View this Content: Select Yes to allow students to view the web link.

     • Track Number of Views: Select Yes to record numbers of times students view the link.

     • Enter the date and time the content will be available.

  3. Table of Content

     • Show Table of Contents to Users

       • Select Yes to Show, No to Hide.

     • Hierarchy Display

       • Display table of content with a prefix like letter or number

  4. Select Submit

Instructional Advice

• When it comes to responding to students' discussion posts, make sure you regularly check the discussion board.

• Create a welcome, non-grade discussion forum for students to participate in before a higher stakes graded discussion. This gives people the opportunity to practice and for all class members, including faculty, to get to know one another. 

Step-by-Step Instructions

If you’d like to create a forum, make sure that “Edit mode,” located in the top right-hand corner of your screen, is on. Once Edit Mode is on, 

Creating a Discussion Forum

• 1. Click “Create Forum” on the action bar to create a new forum.

  2. On the Create Forum page, note the forum information section.

  3. On the Create Forum page, type a forum title in the “Name” box. 

     • This title will be a link for users to access the forum .

  4. Type your discussion language into the Forum Information Description in the content editor. 

     • You can use the content editor functions to format the text and include file attachments, images, web links, multimedia, and mashups. 

     • The Description appears to the right of the forum name on the Discussion Board.

  5. Forum availability means do you want the forum shown immediately about saving or hidden until you are ready to show

     • In the Forum Availability section, select ”Yes” to select the forum available to users. 

     • You can create forums ahead of time and set the availability to ”No” until the discussion is ready to be viewed by students. 

     • You have to manually come into the discussion and make it available later. 

  6. Enter Date and Time Restrictions, let's display you display the discussion to students

  7. Select the ”Display After” and ”Display Until” check boxes for a specific date and time, and to stop displaying on a specific date and time. 

     • You can use the pop-up Date Selection Calendar and Time Selection Menu to select dates and times, or type dates and times in the boxes. If you make unavailable above, these date and time restrictions will not go into effect. 

  8. Forum Settings allows you to place criteria on individuals Discussion Forums on your pedagogical requirements.

     • In this section, you can select how students can view threads and reply to other posts posted by their classmates. The default setting is Standard View, which allows students to immediately participate in the discussions.

     • Another way students can view threads is the option, “participants must create a thread to view other threads in this forum” or post first. This option requires students to respond to the discussion prompt first, before viewing other student responses. Selecting this option will remove some features, like the students' ability to edit and delete posts. 

Grade Settings

• • 1. Use Grade Settings if you want to create social forums with no grading options or the thread requires no grading, select No Grading in Forum.

    2. Select “Grade Discussion Forum” to grade participation in the forum. 

    3. Provide the “Points Possible” by entering the number of points you’d like the discussion forum to be worth. 

    4. When you choose “Grade Discussion Forum” a column is created automatically in the Grade Center with the Name of the discussion. 

 Needs Grading

• • 1. Select the number of posts you’d like students to make before they show up in “needs grading” status by using the drop-down menu. Enter the appropriate number.

    2. Select the due date you would like the discussion forum posts to be. Similarly, select the time you would like them to be due.

    3. Select the rubric you’d like to use. You can select a rubric you’ve already created or create a new rubric altogether.

Rubrics

• • 1. When the Grade Forum option is selected, you can associate rubrics with a forum. Click “Add Rubric”

    2. Select the rubric you’d like to use. You can select a rubric you’ve already created or create a new rubric altogether.

    3. By default, “used for grading” is selected when you add a rubric. However, you can also use the drop-down menu if you choose to use the rubric for “Secondary Evaluation.”

    4. If you add a rubric, you can choose to show your students the rubric with or without rubric scores before grading OR after grading.

    5. You can also choose to refrain from showing your rubric to your students altogether by simply selecting “No.” All these options appear when the “Show Rubric to Students” drop-down menu is clicked.  

Grade Forum or Grade Threads

• • 1. You can choose numbers of posts that will place the activity in ‘needs grading’ status. You might want to grade students only when they have made a certain number of posts, rather than grading each time they make a single post. 

    2. Selecting Grade Threads, some features including allowing anonymous posts, as indicated by the number one on the screen, or allowing members to create new threads indicated by the number 2 will be unavailable as options. 

    3. After setting grading criteria, additional settings can be applied to the discussion forum. 

Subscription

• • 1. Subscribe section of the forum settings page, you can enable email subscription, thereby allowing students to receive email alerts for new posts or replies.

    2. When you enable email subscriptions, students can receive email alerts for new posts or replies. You can allow students to subscribe to an entire forum or specific threads within a forum. To allow members to subscribe to threads, select that option.

    3. If you click “Allow member subscribe to forum,” users can subscribe to all threads within the forum, while subscribing to threads only allows users to choose individual threads within each discussion. 

    4. If you select “Include body of post in the email,” the email displays the message text and a link to reply to the message in the email notification. If you select “Include link to post,” a link to the message will be displayed in the email notification.  Either can be selected for thread or forum subscriptions.

    5. If you allow the subscription of forums or threads, you may wish to notify your students of this option. 

    6. If you do not want your students to subscribe to forums or threads, select “Do not allow subscriptions.”

Create and Edit

• • 1. The post anonymously features allows students to post without being identified or receiving a grade. This tool  

    2. To give students a bit more control over the discussion board, check “Allow author to delete Own Posts.” Then, choose to allow authors to delete their own posts. Decide whether you want them to delete all posts or only posts that have not been replied to.

    3. Another way to give students more freedom with their posts is to allow them to edit their own published posts.

    4. Occasionally, students may introduce material inappropriate for the class discussion to the discussion board. Depending on the maturity and sensitivity of the students in your course, you may need to review student posts before sharing them with the rest of the class.

    5. In a discussion forum, you can assign a user the role of moderator. A moderator reviews posts before they are added to a thread and appear in the discussion board. You or another responsible participant can fulfill the role of moderator.

    6. When you create a moderated forum, all posts to the forum are added to a moderation queue. A moderator reviews each post and does one of the following:

       •  Publishes the post.

       • Returns the post to the sender without a message.

       • Returns the post to the sender with a message.

    7. You choose to moderate a forum when creating it or by editing an existing forum. You can only review posts added after enabling the forum moderation. If you do not assign a moderator, the manager role must take responsibility for approving posts in a moderated forum.

    8. When choosing a moderated forum, do not allow students to edit or delete posts. You want to be sure that users view the posts approved.

Additional Options

• • 1. An additional option that can be enabled is allowing members to tag posts. Tags are text labels that act like bookmarks. You can tag posts to group similar messages together. Students can read, filter, and search messages using these tags, but they cannot create tags.

    2. Another option that can be enabled is allowing members to rate posts. Rating posts allow users to focus on messages considered especially informative or useful by others. Depending on the forum settings, students and instructors can assign ratings to posts using a five-star system.

Step 9: Assignments

Instructional Advice

• Make sure to create your instruction ahead of time. Consider the following format when developing your instruction prompt:

  • Introduction to the discussion

    • Give Context

      • One sentence to frame the conversation, like, “This week we are discussing the following topic X.” Tell a story or give reference to ground the students thinking, like, “often as practitioners, the initial contact is critical to know where the client is in their treatment.”

  • Questions or Prompt

    • Provide open-ended questions to start conversation. 

  • Guidelines for participation

    • What are the rules or expectations for the answers / conversation, and are there many posts expected

    • If they need to provide links or attachments to the discussion, make this clear

Creating An Assignment

• 1. On the Course Menu, select the Assignments link 

  2. On the page, you will see a menu bar, select Assessments across the center of the page

  3. Select Assignment on the pull menu, the Assignment window will appear

  4. In the Assignment Information section, you can use the content editor to format text and add files. 

  5. You can also add files in the Assignment Files section.

  6. Select Browse My Computer to upload a file from your computer. The file is saved in the top-level folder in your course's file repository: Course Files or the Content Collection. You can also attach a file from the repository.-OR-

  7. Drag files from your computer to the center of the Attach Files area. If your browser allows, you can also drag a folder of files. The files will upload individually. 

  8. If the browser doesn't allow you to submit your assignment after you upload a folder, select Do not attach in the folder's row to remove it. You can drag the files individually and submit again.

  9. You can use the file name or provide another name for the file.

  10. Select a Due Date

  11. Assignments with due dates automatically show in the course calendar. Submissions are accepted after this date, but are marked late.

      • When you assign a due date for an assignment, students can still submit attempts after the due date passes. Submissions after the due date are marked late.

      • You can view the late label in these areas:

        • Grade Center

        • Needs Grading page

Grading

This section is organized into three groups

• • 1. Submission Details

       • Assignment Type

         • Select individual, group, or portfolio. You can require a portfolio as the assignment submission.

       • Number of Attempts

         • Allow single, multiple, or unlimited attempts. If you select more than one attempt, you can also decide which attempt to use in the Grade Center.

       • Plagiarism Tools

         • To enable the SafeAssign service, select the plagiarism tool options you want to use. If SafeAssign isn't available, these options don't appear. 

    2. Grading Options

       • Set up anonymous and delegated grading.

    3. Display of Grades

       • Select Grade Center column settings, including whether to show the grade to students.

Grading Options

• • 1. Enable Anonymous Grading

       • On specific date: Provide the date you want to disable anonymous grading. The system automatically begins removing anonymity before the end of that date.

       • After all submissions are graded: Provide a due date. After students submit attempts, the due date passes, and you've graded the attempts, student anonymity is disabled.

       • To manually disable anonymous grading, clear the Enable Anonymous Grading check box.

    2. Enable Delegated Grading

       • Grades and feedback from more than one grader help promote reliability and remove bias. You can assign specific users in your course to grade specific student submissions. For large classes, you can divide the grading tasks between TAs and other graders.

       • After you select the check box to enable delegated grading, you can view a list of all potential graders. Roles with default grading privileges include instructor, teaching assistant, and grader. Use the menu next to each grader's name to assign submissions to grade:

         • All Submissions

         • Random Set

           • Grade a random set of different students. If you assign multiple graders to grade a random set, students are evenly distributed before any student is included in multiple random sets.

         • Groups

           • Grade all students who are part of the selected course groups.

Availability 

• • 1. if you wish to make the assignment available for students.

       • To limit the time the assignment is checked, the appropriate boxes for “Display After” and “Display Until” and enter a date and time for the assignment to be made available or unavailable. 

         • You can choose one or both options, depending on your availability preference. 

         • Making the assignment unavailable will prevent the Limit Availability. Assignments must be available to limit availability.  

         • Additionally, you "Track Number" of Views for each student in the course

    2.  At any time, you may cancel the "Assignment" process. If you have completed the assignment and want to save, click Submit.