The Blackboard course shells for the summer semester will be up on April 17th.  We’ve started getting phone calls from teachers who want to start preparing their courses for the summer now and don’t want to have to wait so I thought I would post some easy to follow directions on getting a head start:

1.  Archive a copy of an “old” course shell (Control Panel:  Archive Course).

2.  Modify the information in this course shell with the materials for your summer course.

3.  When the new course shells become available, use the course copy feature to copy the material from the “old” course into the new course shell (Control Panel:  Course Copy:  Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course”.

**Remember, in order for your students to see your course, you must make the course available**

(1) Select the course you want to make available.
(2) Click on the Control Panel.
(3) Click on Settings.
(4) Click on Course Availability.
(5) Click on Yes and Submit.
These steps will make the course available, and allow students access into your blackboard course.

If you are new to Blackboard, or would like some help, you can email blackboard@fordham.edu or contact the FTC on your campus.

Some helpful PDFs:

Course Creation Checklist
How to Add a Content Item
How to Add a Forum to the Discussion Board
How to Course Copy Materials
Grade Center Basics

Got Video?

This Blackboard tip is for those of you who would like to know how to embed a YouTube video directly into your course documents on Blackboard.

Did you know that you can save time and find the courses you need on Blackboard by customizing the display of the “My Courses” module? It’s very easy to do and will remove the “old” courses from the module so that you won’t have to hunt around for your current courses. Just click on the little pencil icon on the “My Courses” module and uncheck the boxes of the courses you do not want displayed in the first column.

	Click on the image to see a larger sized screen shot

Tonight at midnight Fordham’s Blackboard Learning Management System will be upgraded to version 8.

What does this mean?

First of all, let me reassure you that everything you have previously uploaded to Blackboard will still be there on Monday morning! You may continue using Blackboard this afternoon and this evening, however, any work that you do not save before the 12am deadline will lost.

New features and Enhancements fall into the following catagories:

Grade Center
Self and Peer Assessment Building Block
Safe Assign
Blackboard Content System Enhancements
Scholar Building Block for Basic

For more information, check out a PDF of the Faculty Release Notes for Blackboard 8.0. It might also be a good idea to download and look over a copy of the QUICK source guide to version 8.

You may also contact us to set up a training session on blackboard.
Email: blackboard@fordham.edu
Phone: 718-817-2289

Fordham’s Blackboard Learning Management System will be upgraded to version 8 for the coming academic year. To facilitate the upgrade, the system will be offline for 72 hours beginning at

12:00am on Friday, August 8th

To ease the burden on those teaching early-start classes, 08F courses will be in the system as of 9:00am Monday, July 28th, and faculty teaching this fall may begin updating course information at that time.

Blackboard has prepared Instructor Release Notes for version 8 of Academic Suite to help users get started quickly with the new features, and we encourage everyone to peruse this short document, which can be downloaded in PDF format at: http://tinyurl.com/59pstk

If you have any questions about the upgrade, please don’t hesitate to email blackboard@fordham.edu, or call 718-817-2289.

Over the Summer, Fordham will be upgrading to Blackboard Learning System 8.0. you can get a leg up on the new system–including the enhanced grade book–by taking a look at the Faculty Release Notes: https://behind.blackboard.com/s/sysadminas/refcenter/docs/details.BbDocumentID=3226&pid=100&rid=5759&dt=

08M courses have been uploaded to Blackboard. If you do not see your summer sections in your list of “Courses I am Teaching,” please contact blackboard@fordham.edu for assistance.

One of the issues we see frequently in the FTC is with instructors who can’t see files their students have added to the digital dropbox. When the student logs in, the file is there. When the instructor logs in, it isn’t. The problem is students not understanding how the dropbox works. One of the dropbox’s functions is to allow students to submit datestamped files to instructors, but it also allows students to store files for their own use for the duration of the semester. Sometimes, students don’t realize there are two buttons on the dropbox page, and just click the “Add” button. The “Add” button, though, just uploads the file. It doesn’t actually send the file to the instructor’s dropbox. To do that, they need to use the “Send” button, and it’s worth reminding them of that from time to time.

Today’s tip: if you need to revise materials you have posted to a Blackboard course, attach the revised material to your course item, and then delete the old version. You’ll have two copies of your materials posted for a few minutes, but you’ll have insurance if you have problems uploading the new materials. If you delete the old materials first, and something goes wrong during the upload, you won’t have a backup online.

The blackboard system was unavailable for an extended period of time yesterday, February 10th, while emergency maintenance was performed to correct a server failure. The failure occurred just after 12:00pm and service was fully restored at approximately 6:30pm.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

As a reminder, we encourage all users to email blackboard@fordham.edu immediately if they experience any problems with the Blackboard Learning System.