{"id":6437,"date":"2015-03-09T12:06:30","date_gmt":"2015-03-09T16:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/blackboard-tip-of-the-week-103\/"},"modified":"2015-03-09T12:06:30","modified_gmt":"2015-03-09T16:06:30","slug":"blackboard-tip-of-the-week-103","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/blackboard-tip-of-the-week-103\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackboard Tip of the Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"Bb_Rx_Logo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bb 9.1 April 2014<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Continuing with<\/strong><\/span> the\u00a0\u00a0Bb Rx\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>series of Bb Tips <\/em>for\u00a0faculty whose\u00a0Blackboard\u00a0<\/em>courses may be\u00a0in need of a tune-up, this week’s tip focuses on a fairly common problem, one that is, nevertheless, quite easy to fix: \u00a0courses containing old imported announcements that are still visible to students, even though they provide\u00a0outdated information.<\/p>\n

The problem can be summed up<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0as follows: \u00a0your course announcements represent one of your primary means of communicating with your students; and if you’ve imported announcements from an older version of your course, but you’ve left visible to your students announcements that contain outdated information, the role of the announcements in providing your students with guidance\/clarification over the duration of your course is significantly undermined!<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Bb Rx\u00a0<\/em>for this problem<\/strong><\/span> can take one of several forms. \u00a0If you import old announcements into your course, but plan to update and re-use those announcements, one solution is to simply set the individual, old announcements as unavailable to students, so that you can subsequently update the announcements and make them available to students, as needed.<\/p>\n

If you wish to avoid<\/strong><\/span> the task of manually “tweaking” your old announcements, you may consider applying one of the following “fixes”:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Do an export<\/strong><\/em>\/import<\/strong> <\/em><\/a>from your old course into a z-area (either your default z-area, or a new z-area that the DL Office creates for you at your request), but include\u00a0only\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span>announcements in your export file. \u00a0Using a z-area as an “announcements repository” is the best solution if you are doing an export\/import from a Fall course into a Fall course, or from a Spring course into a Spring course. \u00a0Why? \u00a0The old course, along with its announcements, will disappear after 30 days into the new semester, after which point, you would lose access to the old announcements. \u00a0Since z-areas do not have such a “shelf-life,” you can store old announcements in them with impunity.<\/li>\n
  2. Do not<\/strong> <\/em><\/span>include course announcements when you create the export file that you plan on importing into your new course. \u00a0Instead, on an as-needed basis, copy\/paste the announcements from your old course into your new course, where they can then be updated and made available to students. \u00a0This would be a recommended fix in a situation, for example, where you are doing an export\/import from a Fall course into a Spring course, or vice versa. In this scenario, your old course would not<\/strong> <\/em>disappear before the end of the semester, so you could consequently use it without worry as an “announcements repository.”<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Use the following link<\/strong><\/span> to download a printable version of this Bb tip of the week:\u00a0Download the Tip<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

    Use the following link<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0to view previous\u00a0Bb\u00a0<\/em>tips of the week:\u00a0BBTOTW-Archive<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Better yet,<\/strong><\/span> drop by the Center for Distance and Online Learning (BTC 1033-1043<\/strong>) on Tuesday, March 10, from 12:00 \u2013 1:00, for a Bb Rx<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0session on how to\u00a0manage old course announcements.<\/p>\n

    As always,<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0please feel free to contact the Distance Learning Office (629-7070\/DLHelp@hvcc.edu<\/a><\/strong>) if you have any questions about this!<\/div>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Published:<\/strong>\u00a0Mon, 09 Mar 2015 12:06:30 +0000 by\u00a0m.petersen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Bb 9.1 April 2014 Continuing with the\u00a0\u00a0Bb Rx\u00a0series of Bb Tips for\u00a0faculty whose\u00a0Blackboard\u00a0courses may be\u00a0in need of a tune-up,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2086,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}