Bb A2014
Here are two important tips for faculty who are using the new version of Blackboard (Bb A2014) to do course imports and exports for the Fall semester.
First, when you select Export/Archive Course under Packages and Utilities, you will see a new section in the Export Course window called FILE ATTACHMENTS. This section pertains to the new Content Collection feature in Blackboard, and you should make sure that the options that you select are the same as they appear in the following screenshot:
Second, you should be aware of a new option for exporting and importing your course Discussion Board. Previously in Blackboard, when you exported and imported your Discussion Board from one course to another, the posts (what are referred to as starter posts/threads) in all of your Discussion Forums would come over automatically as anonymous posts/threads. For faculty who didn’t want to retain these old starter posts/threads, this necessitated the time-consuming task of navigating to each Forum in their Discussion Board, and then deleting all of those imported posts/threads.
In Bb A2014, old posts/threads will still come in as anonymous by default. However, when you scroll down your Export Course window to select from the check-box list the items that you want to include in your Export Package, you will see under Discussion Board that you can now elect instead to have your Discussion Forums export without the old posts/threads:
This new feature will streamline the process by which you can prepare your courses for a new academic session!
However, faculty who use old posts (threads) as exemplars, or who set up their Discussion Forums so that students reply to threads that they create, can simply go with the default option of including starter posts for each thread in each forum:
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you elect to include starter posts/threads in your export file, you must also select the option called Include starter posts for each thread in each forum (anonymized) when you check those items in the Import Course checklist that you want to import from the export file:
After you have imported your Discussion Board this way, you will receive a Set Author of Anonymous Posts prompt the first time that you try to access the Discussion Board area of your course. A provided drop-down menu offers you three options: 1) You can ignore the prompt (not recommended, since you will be prompted again each time that you try to access your Discussion Board until you select one of the other options); 2) You can elect to have your posts remain anonymous (this option is recommended for faculty who like to include in their Discussion Forums exemplary posts from previous sections of their courses; or 3) You can elect to have yourself listed as the author of the imported posts (this option is recommended for faculty who don’t allow students to post threads to their Discussion Forums, but instead create thread themselves, to which they expect students to respond). See the following:
Use the following links to view detailed tutorials on how to export and import your course:
Use the following link to download a printable version of this Bb tip of the week: Download the Tip
Use the following link to view previous Bb tips of the week: BBTOTW-Archive
As always, please do not hesitate to contact the Distance and Online Learning Office (629-7070 / DLHelp@hvcc.edu), if you have any questions, or if you would like to receive training on this topic.
Published: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 11:59:38 +0000 by m.petersen