Blackboard Instructors/Organization Leaders:
Important information to Prepare Your Course/Organization for the spring 2017 semester
Blackboard was successfully updated and the following important things have been resolved.
Tests: Resolved — During auto-save, the cursor was jumping to the text box when a test consisted of essay, short answer, fill-in-the-blank, etc. question types.
Discussion: Resolved — Faculty were unable to access discussion forums to view posts if the forum was set to unavailable.
Grade Center — Resolved-The navigation buttons on the Grade screen (view attempt) were not working or working incorrectly. The Exit button performed no action when clicked and Submit created an error message. The user could no longer click on the Grade Center link in Course Management to return to the Full Grade Center.
However, there are 4 important things to check in your course related to the upgrade or previous existing Known Issue:
1. If you made your Spring 2017 course available prior to the update, you will need to make it available again.
2. Your course name may change when you import it, for example, when you import Fall_2016_name of course into the Spring_2017_name of course; the Spring_2017 reverts to Fall_2016 so you will see two Fall_2016 courses in your course list. This only happens sporadically and is a very easy fix: please email DLHelp@hvcc.edu or call 629-7070 and DLstaff will fix it immediately.
3. Color themes on your menu bar may have changed (which may make the menu text hard to read) and the Menu text and background color tools in Teaching Style do not work. However, there are some easy options to change the colors:
If you use Buttons instead of Text for the menu area, this allows both text and background colors to be modified. You can also try changing the Theme, but that does not work for all cases. These options to modify can be found in the Control Panel>Customization>Teaching Style https://docs.hvcc.edu/dl/?p=1518.
4. If you use Mac-Graw Hill or other publisher material, you will need to re-enable the tools in your course: On Control Panel, go to Customization / Tool Availability. In the Tool Availability window that opens, scroll down to where the McGraw-Hill (or other publisher) components are listed. Simply select the check-boxes for those components that you would like to be accessible from your course content areas (Make sure you select MacGraw-Hill Higher Education if you use MacGraw-Hill publisher material.)
Please check your Courses and Organizations and let us know immediately if you find anything that is not working as you expect it should. And please see the Known Issues Module on your Blackboard Home Tab for detailed information on issues that are in progress or pending.
The usual Prepare Your Course for the Semester info which can be found at:
https://docs.hvcc.edu/dl/?p=1199
Remember as you are exporting and importing courses, the process may take a while depending on how many other courses are queued. Please DO NOT submit multiple times or it will take even longer. Call the Center for Distance and Online Learning if you need assistance.
Also, if you do not use Bb Collaborate Tools, please do not select them as items to export or import else you will get a “failure” notice even though your course successfully imports.
Don’t Forget to Make Your Course Available
Once the semester begins, students will only have access to a course that has been made available by the course instructor. You must manually make your course/s available in Blackboard in order for students to see them.
To set the course availability, follow these steps from the Control Panel of your course:
Select Customization
Select Properties
Locate Step 3: Set Availability and select Yes, “Make Course Available”
Select Submit
A green confirmation bar will appear indicating that the properties have been updated
As always, please do not hesitate to contact the Center for Distance and Online Learning (629-7070 / DLHelp@hvcc.edu) if you have any questions or need assistance!
Published: Tue, 10 Jan 2017 13:34:27 +0000 by s.gallagher