Education Technology - Faculty Portal

Do you have a student with a disibility request for an accommodation allowing them additional time on a test? If you use Blackboard for tests and quizzes, there is a setting that easily allows you to adjust the timer for individual students. Follow these steps:

This video will give you a quick overview of some of the most important instructional tools in Blackboard, such as the Announcements tool, adding multimedia, Discussion Forums, and Assignments.

Customize how and when students see test results You can manage what students see after submitting a test by going to the test, clicking the drop down next to it and clicking Edit the Test Options. Scroll down to the section labeled Show Test Results and Feedback to Students. Here is a brief explanation of the options. By default, the first row shows what students will see after submission, which is just their score per question. This essentially lets students know what they got right or wrong, but that's it. You also have these options: All Answers: This displays the question and all of the answer choices. This reminds students what the choices were when they took the test, but it doesn't show the correct choice or what they chose. Correct: This shows what the correct answer is for each question. By itself, it doesn't show what they other choices were, so if you want students to see what all of the choices were, then you should also click All Answers. Submitted: If you want to remind students what they chose for their answer, then you can check this box. It will display the answer the student chose. However, it doesn't show what the correct answer was, or the other options, so if you want students to see those, you will need to click the All Answers and/or Correct boxes, too. Feedback: If you entered feedback on the questions when you created the test, check this box for students to see it. You have the option when creating questions to provide feedback for when a student gets the question correct, as well as when they are incorrect. Students will not see this feedback unless you check this box. Show Incorrect Answers: This displays all of the questions on the test (without the answers, unless you have checked All Answers) with a red x icon next to the questions that the student got incorrect. Students can usually figure out which questions they got wrong by how many points they received, but this is just a nice visual way to show this. Also, if you have items that need manual grading, it will put a Needs Grading icon next to the question so the student doesn't think that they automatically got that question wrong when there are no points. You can use any combination of these options to determine what you want students to see. In addition, you can also show one set of options After Submission, and then choose another set of options On Specific Date, After Due Date, After Availability End Date, or After Attempts are graded (every student must have a graded attempt to satisfy this rule). Some instructor will let the students see which questions they got incorrect After Submission, but then show all of the answers, the correct answers, and the submitted choice After Due Date. For my practice tests, I show the students All Answers, Submitted, and Show Incorrect Answers. This lets them see the whole test again and gives them the responsibility to look up the correct answers. I'm mean like that.

Copying course materials into an existing course will add content to a course, but it won't remove existing content. You can only copy materials into a course if you have the role of instructor, teaching assistant (TA), or course builder.

This short video will show you how to: Add the My Media module to your Blackboard homepage Record a video using Kaltura CaptureSpace Add a video to a course in Blackboard using Mashups

Organize the Grade Center - April 23, 2018 Organize the Grade Center How organized is your Grade Center? Do you have unused columns cluttering it up? Can you easily find what you're looking for? Did you know that you can customize the Grade Center? The Grade Center comes with student data columns, and two total columns. As you add graded items to your course, they get added to the Grade Center and become the last column on the right. If you copy Grade Center columns and settings when you do a course copy, you might end up with duplicates of all of your columns! Check out the steps below to customize your Grade Center so it's nice and tidy before the end of the semester. Organize Columns Click the Manage drop down menu on the Action Bar. Select Column Organization. On the next screen, click and drag the four-headed arrow next to an item to re-order the columns. To hide columns, select the check box next to the item(s), click the Show/Hide button, and select Hide Selected Columns. To change categories, select the check box next to the item(s), click the Change Category to button and select the new category from the list. When you're done making changes, click Submit. Delete Unused Columns To delete unused columns, click the drop down next to the title of the column and select Delete Column. Tip: If you click the drop-down menu next to an item in the Full Grade Center and there is no delete button, that means that the assigned work is deployed somewhere in your class. You will need to delete the item in your content folders or discussion board to be able to delete the column. Are you ready to Calculate your Grades? Follow these steps on the Faculty Portal.

Running Total - April 30, 2018 Running Total How does the Grade Center calculate grades for your students? How does Blackboard know whether to count a missing assignment as exempt or a zero? You determine this yourself by choosing the setting for Running Total. By default, Running Total is turned ON in each column in the Grade Center, which means that empty cells are not counted in any calculations. If there is no grade, it doesn't count against the student. However, if you want this to count against the student because they didn't submit an assignment, you must enter a zero in that cell. It is important to do this before the end of the semester so students know how these missing assignments impact their grade. If they are left blank, their grade is artificially inflated. You might be asking yourself, well, why don't I just turn off Running Total? If you turn off Running Total, then every blank cell in the Grade Center counts as a zero. If you set up all of your columns in the Grade Center at the beginning of the semester, that's a lot of zeros! Their first assignment might bring their grade up from 0% to 2%, which might be pretty discouraging to students. We recommend leaving Running Total on, and then adding zeros to empty columns as you enter grades. This gives students a realistic picture of their course grade at any point throughout the semester. Read about what happened to Karen Miller when she started using the Grade Center in her post, Blackboard's Gift.

Copying course materials into a new course will add content to a course, but it won't remove existing content. You can only copy materials into a course if you have the role of instructor, teaching assistant (TA), or course builder.

It's almost that time of the semester again....time to pull up your Excel spreadsheets, your calculator and red pen, and a box of Kleenex to sop up the tears of frustration from calculating grades manually. Wouldn't it be great if there was a program that calculated all of those assignments and percentages for you? There is!

Navigating Blackboard.

Learn how to add other types of files and media.

Popular questions from faculty.

When courses are created, they are unavailable to students until the instructor decides to make the course available. Once you decide that the course is ready and you make it available, MaineStreet will populate your course with a student roster in 24 hours. Here's how to make your course available:

iFrames will allow you to embed content from another website directly alongside your own materials. Learn the basics of how to insert an iframe in Blackboard and get access to the list of supported domains.

Announcements are an ideal way to post time-sensitive information critical to course success, such as Due dates for assignments and projects, changes to your syllabus or exam schedules. When you add an announcement, you can also send it as an email to students in your course. This way, students receive the announcement even if they don't log in to your course.

Courses are kept on the Blackboard server typically for 2 years and are then put in a deletion cycle. If you would like to keep your old courses, there are some steps you need to take.

This tutorial shows you how to use the grading sidebar to see assignment submissions and annotate them with feedback for students.

Discussion forums are used extensively in distance education as a way for students to "participate" in class, share resources, and engage in dialog around course concepts.

Direct Submit allows faculty members to submit one paper at a time or multiple papers at once in a ZIP file format for a plagiarism check.

Direct Submit allows faculty members to submit one paper at a time or multiple papers at once in a ZIP file format for a plagiarism check.