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Once you log in to Blackboard, you will land on the dashboard.
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The dashboard is a launching pad made up of customizable modules that provide easy access
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to your courses and other helpful information and tools.
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Under the Brandman University tab there are two main modules to be aware of:
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My Announcements will display the most recent announcements posted by you in your courses.
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And, My Courses.
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This module will display every course you have been given access to.
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These courses are sorted alphabetically and then grouped by those you enrolled in as an
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instructor, teaching assistant and/or student.
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This module can get pretty full depending on how many courses you’ve been enrolled
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in.
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You can customize and manage which courses and what course information is displayed by
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clicking the ‘S’ icon in the upper right-hand corner of the module.
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We will go over more on the My Courses module, including when courses become available, in
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a later video.
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The modules can be moved by clicking the top and dragging to the desired area of the dashboard.
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You can also minimize a module by clicking the arrow that appears just to the left of
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the module title.
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You will be visiting this page often so consider making it your own.
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You can add modules by clicking the Add Module option in the upper left corner of the screen.
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You can also change the color theme by selecting Personalize Page, located in the upper right-hand
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corner of the screen.
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As a helpful tip, consider customizing the My Courses module to display only your current
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Course Links and use the Course List module to display more detailed information about
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all of your courses.

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If you have been granted access to your course, you will see a link to that course in the
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My Courses module on the Blackboard dashboard, or from your Courses List under the courses
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tab.
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Typically, you will gain access to your course two weeks prior to the start of the session.
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During those two weeks, you may notice that it says “not currently available” next
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to the course link.
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This means that the course is not currently available to students.
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Courses are made available to student’s the Friday before the start of the session.
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This gives you approximately two weeks to familiarize yourself with the course content,
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make any necessary adjustments and make sure that everything is working properly before
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students have access.
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Click the course link to navigate to your course.
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In this video, we will walk through what a typical course looks like and provide a brief
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explanation of what everything is.
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Each video following this one will cover the functionality of each section in greater detail.
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First, we have Edit Mode in the top right corner of the course.
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When edit mode is off, you will see things from a student perspective and you are not
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able to make changes in any of the content areas.
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In order to make changes within your course, always make sure that edit mode is on.
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Toggling edit mode is as simple as clicking on or off.
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Opposite Edit Mode is the Course Home link and the Course-to-Course Navigation menu.
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Clicking the title of the course in the upper left corner of the screen will always take
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you back to the Course Entry page.
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Generally, this is always the announcements page.
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The small grey circle with a down arrow, known as the contextual menu, always indicates there
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is a drop-down menu that provides additional options.
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In the case of the contextual menu next to the home link, we have the Course-to-Course
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Navigation Menu.
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This menu lists your most recently visited courses as well as your other courses.
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However, selecting a course from this menu will take you to the same location you are
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currently in, but in a different course.
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For example, if I’m looking at the Grade Center in one course and want to see what
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the Grade Center looks like in the other course I’m teaching, all I have to do is select
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that course from this menu and I’ll be taken there.
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The section below the Home link is called the Course Menu.
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Note that the course menu may vary slightly from course to course.
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For this video, I’ll be going over the course menu structure that is typically seen in most
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courses.
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The Course Menu begins with the Start Here and Course Information buttons.
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They contain resources and materials specific to the university and course.
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Next, we have the links to each week of the course session that contains each week’s
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content area.
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Brandman courses are divided over eight weeks.
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Each week contains learning objectives, materials, and activities specific to that week.
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The weekly content areas are also where students access and submit all of their assignments.
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After the weekly content areas, you will see the Discussion Board button.
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Tools will take you to a number of learning tools that are available to you.
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This page is really where your students access course tools such as the Send Email feature,
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to communicate with you and their classmates.
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Announcements will take you back to the Announcements page.
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The My Grades link is for your student’s to view their grades.
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You will not be able to view grades as an instructor through this link.
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Instead you will use the Grade Center, which will be addressed in a separate video.
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The Library link is available for you and your students to navigate to Chapman University’s
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Leatherby Libraries for any academic resources you might need.
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And lastly, the Help button takes you to the Brandman Tech Support page, should you or
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a student require any assistance during your course.
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Below the Course Menu is the Course Management Panel.
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This is only available to you, the instructor, and will remain regardless of whether edit
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mode is on or off.
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Course Management contains the Control Panel.
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Be sure to check out our other videos on Course Tools, Evaluation and the Grade Center.
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This main section to the right is called a content area.
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The sections on the top and to the left are generally for navigating the course.
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The content area is what you and the students will interact with most.
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Above the content area is the Action Bar.
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The Action Bar contains menus for adding content and to offer additional options in other areas
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of the course.
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Make note of how it changes as you navigate through the course.
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If you do not see the Action Bar it’s most likely because your edit mode is off so always
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make sure that you’ve turned it on when you enter the course.
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Before moving on to editing content, take some time to familiarize yourself with each
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of these sections.

Instructors are given access to their course approximately two weeks before the start of the term. Students will generally gain access to the course just a few days before the course begins. This gives you an opportunity to prepare your course shell. Whether you’re about to start your first course at Brandman, or you’ve been teaching for us for years, you should always follow these three steps to prepare your course: Review, Reach Out and Revise. First, you will want to review ALL course content. The easiest way to do this is to start at the top of the course menu and work your way down. The Start Here button always stays the same but it’s a good idea to review all of the information that’s available so you know where to refer students who may need it. Specifically, take time to test the links and make sure all images are loading properly. Next, go to Course Information. The content in this area will vary from course to course but generally you will always find the Instructor Resources folder, a place designated for your picture and bio, and the course syllabus. Notice that the Instructor Resources folder says it is “not available”. This means that it is not available to students. If you turn Edit Mode off, the folder disappears. Make sure Edit Mode is on if you’re having trouble locating this folder. Instructor Resources holds important information that is specific to you, the instructor. We’ll come back to this later. Let’s go back to Course Information by clicking Course Information in the Course Menu or from the folder navigation at the top. Read through the material and test all of the links to make sure they take you to the correct website or download the correct documents. As you read through and test the course content, you may have questions about how to approach certain aspects of the course or you may discover things that may not be working properly. At that point you’ll want to complete the second step in preparing your course and reach out for help. If you have questions about the content of the course that is not related to a technical issue in the Blackboard shell, you’ll want to reach out to your course contact or course custodian. If something isn’t functioning properly within your course shell, reach out to your school’s designated Academic Technology Support Specialist (or AT for short). A list of email addresses and phone numbers for your AT can be found by clicking the Question Mark icon in the Global Navigation Menu then click on the Faculty link. The AT contact information will be located towards the middle of the page. Once you’ve reached out and resolved any issues you have with your course it’s time for the final step, revising necessary content. Note that most courses will have minimal revisions needed in the course shell. Major revisions to the course must be approved by the course contact. The most common necessary changes include updating the instructor’s bio in Course Information, setting specific due dates for assignments, adding additional resources, and uploading a personal photo or avatar. In Course Information, make sure you add your bio and a picture in the space provided. For more information on how to edit content, please watch the next video in this series titled, “Editing Content”. Many instructors may add additional resources in the weekly content areas to supplement reading assignments. For more information on adding new content to your course, view our video titled Creating New Content. Lastly, in addition to adding your picture and bio to Course Information, you should consider uploading an image of yourself as your personal avatar. An avatar in Blackboard is a small image that appears next to your name in various places in the shell. For example, your avatar will appear to the left of your name in discussions you have participated in. To add your personal avatar, click on the global navigation menu in the top right corner and select Settings. Then click on Personal Information and on the next page select Personalize My Settings. Make sure “Use custom avatar image” is selected and then click Browse My Computer to locate your image. Note that the recommended pixel size for an avatar is 150 by 150. Larger images should be clipped. When your image has finished uploading, click Submit. To return to your course, click the Global Navigation Menu again, then Courses, and your course should appear at the top under “Recently Visited”. Taking full advantage of the time before your course begins to review course content, reach out with questions or issues, and revising necessary content is very important. It also saves you and your students a lot of headache later. We want our students to have the best user experience possible. The energy you would put into preparing a physical classroom, is the same energy you should put into preparing your course shell. And of course, if issues do come up once you’ve started teaching, the ATs in the CII are always standing by to assist.

Editing content begins by making sure that Edit Mode is turned ON. To turn it on, simply click the Edit Mode button in the top right corner of the course window so it says, “Edit Mode is: ON” with a green light. With Edit Mode on, when you move your mouse over any content that has additional options, the drop-down or contextual menu button appears. This icon looks like a small grey circle with a down arrow. It’s important to take a moment to explain the difference between the types of content in Blackboard: Content Areas, Content Folders and Items. Your course is predominantly made up of Content Areas. Things like Start Here, Course Information and the weeks are all individual Content Areas, accessible through the course menu. Content Areas hold Content Folders, Items, and other types of course content. A content folder is used to group content together to create a special area for certain course material. For example, the Instructor Resources folder in Course Information or an Assignments folder in a Weekly content area. An item is an individual section of text, links or embedded media. We’ll start by clicking the drop-down menu button next to the About Your Instructor item in the Course Information content area, to reveal a menu with additional options. Click on Edit to make changes to the item. On the page that follows you’ll see the different ways you can edit the item. The Content Information area is where you change the name, or the heading of the item, and the major content. Type your content directly into this area called the Text Editor. To collapse and expand the text editor options click the double arrows on the far right side of the text editor. You can also view the text editor in full screen by clicking the icon with four arrows.. To return, click the full screen button again. You can also resize the text editor by dragging the ‘Resize text editor’ area located in the bottom right corner of the text editor. Click the help button, which looks like a lower case ‘i’, to see what all three rows of buttons do in the text editor. The features you’ll use most often include creating a hyperlink and inserting images. To create a hyperlink to a different website, highlight the text you wish to make a clickable link and click the “Insert/Edit Link” button. A pop up window will open. Enter the URL, or web address, into the Link Path area. Make sure the Target is set to “Open in New Window”. When you’re done, click insert. To test the link, click the “Preview Button” located in the top right of the text editor area and in the window that opens, click the link you just added. To insert an image, click the Insert/Edit Image button. In the new window that opens, click Browse My Computer to locate the image file. Insert an image description and title so that screen readers for the visually impaired can describe the image. This step is vital for making your course acessible to those who require accomodation. When finished, click insert. You can resize the image by clicking the image to select it then by dragging any of the white boxes that appear on the edges of the image. To attach a document to a content item, scroll down to the attachments section. Click browse my computer and locate the file. You may also drag a file to the Attach Files area outlined by a dotted line. To remove an attached file click “Do not attach” or “Mark for Removal” if it is a document that’s already been uploaded and saved. In the standard options section, you can customize the availability of the item. If content is “available” that means that is visible to students when they access the course. To make an item unavailable, click no for “Permit Users to View this Content”. To track the number of times this item is viewed, select yes for this option. If you’d like content to initially be unavailable and automatically become available on a certain date, for example during a specific week, check the box next to Display After and enter the date and time. If you only want your content to display for a certain amount of time, check the box next to Display Until and enter the date and time you wish the item to not be available. Note that this option, “Permit Users to View this Content”, trumps whatever is set in the Date and Time Restrictions so be sure to choose one or the other. We’ll go ahead and change this to Yes since we’ve chosen specific dates and times to display this content. Lastly, click Submit. If you’ve set availability restrictions, you’ll notice that the icon is slightly transparent and it will display to you , under the item heading, what the availability is.

There will be times where it is necessary to download course documents from Blackboard, edit them, and then upload them into your course again, replacing the previous version. This process will look slightly different depending on what browser you use, and whether you’re using a mac or a pc. For this tutorial, I’ll show you the basics of downloading and uploading using Google Chrome, on a Mac. If the process on your computer is different than we present here, and you still need help, contact your AT. Downloading a course document is as simple as clicking on the link for that document. If that document is a PDF, it will generally open in a new tab or window. To save the PDF to your computer for offline viewing, you’ll need to click the download button in the new tab that opens, or in Blackboard instead of clicking on the link, you can right-click and select Save Link as. Either way, you should then be prompted to choose a location to save the document. Make sure you choose a location that you can readily access. For example, the desktop or a specific folder you’ve created for your course. When you’re done, click Save. This is a good place to mention that course documents available to students are generally always in PDF format, such as documents attached to items in the weekly content areas. This is because PDFs are the most accessible format for students who are using a wide variety of devices to view them, and PDFs also limit the student’s ability to edit the content. If an editable version of a course document is available, it should be in the Instructor Resources folder in Course Information. Clicking on the links for Word docs and other files, such as powerpoint presentations, will likely automatically send those files to the Downloads folder. Most browsers are generally set to download documents to the Downloads folder by default, unless you’ve changed that setting. In Chrome, your downloaded document appears at the bottom of the screen. Click on the document to open it. After you’ve made the necessary changes to your document, click File > Save as…and save the document in a well-known location on your computer that you’ll remember. Again, the desktop or specific folder for the course . We also recommend adding your last name or the revision date to the title so you can differentiate between your version and the version you downloaded from Blackboard. When you’re done, click save. Remember, if you’re making changes to a course document that is available to students, it is recommended that you then save the file as a PDF. Most computers should have this capability. If you dont contact the service desk if you have questions about your computer’s ability to convert documents to PDF. My version of Word allows me to save the file as a PDF by clicking File, Save as then selecting PDF. You’re now ready to go back to Blackboard and upload the new version of your document. You can “Overwrite” the file by clicking the drop down next to the link you clicked to download the document. Click browse my computer and select the updated document or drag and drop the updated document to the Attach Files area. Click Submit when you’re done. Overwriting the file in this way does not change the link name so only use this feature if you only made minor edits to a document and did not change the title of the document. To replace a document completely, click the drop down next to the title of the content item where the original document is attached and select “Edit”. Scroll down to the Attachments section. The original document will be listed here under “Attached files”. Click “Mark for removal” on the far right side. Next, click “Browse My Computer” to locate the updated version of the file. When you’re done, click Submit and you’ve successfully uploaded the new document.

There may be times in your course where you want to add additional content to your course. This is possible through the menus located at the top of the content area, which are visible while in edit mode. In this video, I’ll primarily cover how to add Items, Folders, and Web Links. I will also briefly touch on adding Assignments and Tests from the Assessments menu. For more detailed information on setting up assignments and tests, view the videos later on in this series. First, let’s add an Item. Hover over Build Content and then click Item. You’re then taken to the same page that we covered in great detail in our Editing Content video. Go back and view this video if you have questions. Add a name, which is the main header and add your content here in the text editor. You can attach a file under the Attachments section and adjust the availability of the item under the Standard Options section. Click Submit when you’re done. Your item will appear at the bottom of the content area. To move the item, place your mouse on the far left side of the item, click and drag the item up to the desired position. If you plan on adding multiple related items, consider creating a content folder that will group them all together. Hover over Build Content, then click on Content Folder. The options for the content folder are very similar to that of an item except you do not have the ability to attach a document. However, you can adjust the availability of the folder, which hides the folder and all of its contents until the desired time. If all you want to do is add a web link to an external website, rather than creating an item and creating a hyperlink in the text editor, add a web link by hovering over Build Content, then clicking on “Web Link”. Type the name of the link, which is what the students will click on, and type or paste the website’s URL in the URL text box. Add a description that instructs the students to click on the link above and indicate to them what they should expect to see when they get there. You can attach a file if you need to in the Attachments section, otherwise scroll down to the Web Link Options. It is important to always set web links to open in a new window. There are a number of reasons for this but mainly if you don’t, Blackboard attempts to open the website within the content area and most websites are not formatted to be able to do this so they don’t display correctly or at all. The Standard Options section provides the basic availability options that you can set much like in a content item or folder. When you’re done click submit. Next we’ll look at how to add assignments and tests. Adding an assessment to the course generally requires approval from your course contact. To add an assignment hover over Assessments, then click on Assignment. You’ll add a name in the Name text box , and the instructions for the assignment in the Text Editor. You may also choose to type, “See attached instructions” and then attach a document by clicking the Browse My Computer under the Assignment Files section. Input how many points the assignment is worth in the Points Possible box. Next, always be sure to add a specific due date if there is one. When you’re done, click Submit. Your assignment is added to the bottom of the content area. Also, whenever you create an assignment, a column is added in the Grade Center with the same title as your assignment. Students submit their assignments by clicking on the title of the assignment from wherever the assignment link is located. Lastly, adding a test to your course is similar to adding an assignment. Hover over the assessments menu, then Test. On the following page you’ll see you can click Create to build a new test or select a test from the list if there are tests that have been built but not deployed.

Course Tools, if you remember, are located over on the left-hand side of the page, under the Control Panel in the Course Management section. Click Course Tools to expand the list. The first tool we’ll cover is Announcements. With announcements, you can post timely information critical to course success. This is especially useful since the Announcements page is set as the default landing page for your course, so it’s the first thing students see when they access their courses. On the Announcements page, you can add, edit, and delete announcements. This is an ideal place to post time-sensitive material including: Due dates for assignments and projects, changes to your syllabus, and corrections or clarifications of materials. When you add an announcement, you can also send the announcement as an email to students in your course. This ensures that students receive the announcement even if they don’t log in to your course. Announcements appear in the order posted, with the most recent announcements appearing first. To get started, click Create an Announcement on the action bar. On the Create Announcement page, type a Subject. This becomes the title of the announcement on the Announcements page. Next, type your message in the text editor. In the Web Announcements Options section, click Not Date Restricted to keep the announcement visible until you remove it. Or, select Date Restricted to limit the announcement's visibility by date and time. Select the Display After and Display Until checkboxes to enable the date and time selections. Select the Email Announcement check box to send students an email containing the announcement. The email is sent to all students as soon as you click submit, even those who choose not to receive announcement notifications through email. Note that the Email Announcement checkbox cannot be checked if the Display After time is in the future. Optionally, in the Course Link section, click Browse to link to a course area, tool, or item. When you’re done, click Submit. Announcements appear directly below the repositionable bar. Reorder by dragging the bar or announcements to new positions. Move priority announcements above the repositionable bar to pin them to the top of the list and prevent new announcements from superseding them. The order shown is the order presented to students. Students do not see the bar and cannot reorder announcements. To edit or delete an announcement, access its contextual menu and click Edit or Delete. Be careful because deleting an announcement is final and irreversible.

The email tool allows you to send an email to other people in your course without launching an external email program, such as Gmail or Outlook. You can send an email to individual users or to groups of users. When an email is sent to more than one person, the recipients of each email will not see the email addresses of other recipients. On the course menu, click the Tools link. On the following page, click Send Email. -OR- On the Control Panel, expand the Course Tools section and click Send Email. On the next page for either of these options you will be able to send email in the following ways: To all users in your course, including any teaching assistants or co-instructors. All groups in your course. To just the students in your course. All teaching assistants in your course. All instructors in your course, if you’re not the only one teaching the course. All Observer Users Select Users from a list. Select Groups from a list. Or Send email to a single observer or select observers in your course. It is recommended you use the All Users or Single/Select Users or Single/Select Groups option. For Single/Select Users or Single/Select Groups, select the recipients in the Available to Select box and click the right-pointing arrow to move them into the Selected box. A back arrow is available to move a user out of the recipient list. Click Invert Selection and selected users are no longer highlighted and those users that are not selected will be highlighted. Type your Subject then type a Message in the text editor. Click Attach a file to browse for a file from your computer. You can attach multiple files. After you add one file, the option to attach another file appears. If you would like a copy of this email be sure to select the Return Receipt option. To send click Submit. After you send an email, a message appears at the top of the Send Email page listing all recipients the email was sent to. Note that this message is not a confirmation that any users received the message. It only confirms that the message was sent. There are a few important things to note about sending email in Blackboard: First, Blackboard keeps no record of sent or received email. When you receive or send an email, the email appears in the inbox of your Brandman email. You should make sure to select the return receipt option before sending the email in order to retain a copy of important messages in case you need them at a later date. Blackboard only sends email to students’ Brandman email address. However, students do have the option to route their email to a different email program. Email programs, such as Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo, may identify email from Blackboard as junk mail, and either automatically delete it or move it to a junk mail folder. If your students have problems receiving your email, ask them to check their user preferences or options for settings regarding the handling of junk email. They can also reach out to the service desk by emailing [email protected].

Building a sense of community among students is crucial for a successful online experience. With the discussion board tool, course members can replicate the robust discussions that take place in the traditional classroom. Discussions can serve a range of purposes: An online meeting place for social interaction among peers. An additional medium for collaboration and the exchange of ideas. A medium to pose questions about homework assignments, readings, and course content. A record of discussion that members can review at a later point. And a graded activity that demonstrates understanding or application of course material. This is the first of two videos on the Discussion Board and we’ll focus on how to actively participate in the forums and threads. The next video will cover all of the ins and outs of grading discussions in your course. The discussion board is most easily accessed by clicking the Discussion Board link in the course menu on the left-hand side of the page. This will take you to the main Discussion Board page in which all discussion forums are located A forum is an area where participants discuss a topic or a group of related topics. Within each forum, participants can create multiple threads. A thread includes the initial post and all replies to it. Discussions appear from newest to oldest so all course members can follow the conversation. The forums may look slightly different depending on the course you’re teaching. However, most courses have a Class Question Board, or something similar, where students can post general questions about the course, and at least one graded discussion forum for each week of the course. The discussion prompt is generally written in the forum description to the right of the forum title and tells the students exactly what should be discussed that week. To the right of the description you’ll see four numbers for each forum: the total number of posts made in the forum, the amount of posts you haven’t read yet, the amount of unread replies to you directly and how many students have participated in the forum. In general, the discussion boards will already be set up for you. In rare cases, you may choose to add an additional forum or make changes to an existing discussion assignment. Remember to always check with the course custodian before making any major changes to the course. To create an additional forum, click the Create Forum button. To edit an existing forum, place your mouse over the forum and click the drop down menu next to the forum title for additional options. Select Edit from the menu that appears. On the edit forum page you can adjust the Forum Information, Forum availability and a variety of Forum Settings. Please reach out to your school’s designated Academic Technology Support Specialist before making any changes to the Forum Settings. A list of their email addresses is available on the faculty page of the CII website. When you’re done making changes, click Submit. Each forum can be accessed by clicking on the title of the forum. This will take you to a list of discussion threads, or responses to this forum’s prompt. Your students will typically create a main post responding to the discussion prompt by clicking Create Thread. Note that the prompt, or forum description, will appear above the message area. A subject or title for the thread is typed in the Subject box and the main content of the response is input in the text edit area. Files can also be attached to the post by clicking Browse My Computer. When the response is complete, click Submit. When a thread is created, it is available to be responded to by other course members. Most courses require students to do a main post and then respond to a certain number of other students. This particular forum only has a few threads created. Depending on the size of your roster, the list of threads can get pretty long so it’s important to know the easiest ways to organize and keep up with multiple discussions. First, notice that the thread page can be viewed in two ways; List View and Tree View. List view simply lists each thread, typically by date, with the most recent posts on top. If you select Tree View, you’ll notice that you now have a list of threads with the option to expand and view links to each response in that thread. Clicking the titles of the responses takes you to a page that lists all of the posts in that thread. Notice that the initial post is at the top and the responses are below and slightly indented. To make threads easier to read, you can click Collapse All at the top and then click individual posts to expand. Click again to collapse. To collapse even more, click “Hide replies” on the right hand side of the posts. As you place your cursor over each expanded post, you’ll see that you have a few options for participating in this discussion. Click reply to post a public response that is visible to anyone in the course. The text editor will appear and you can type your response in the text editor and click submit. If you do not want a response to be public, click email author and your response will be emailed to their Brandman email address. Note that when viewing the whole thread, posts that are unread have a small blue dot to the left of the user’s image . When you move your cursor over the messages, the post is automatically marked as having been read. To mark them as unread, simply click the dot. To return to the list of threads, scroll all the way to the bottom and click OK. Sometimes you may want to just read unread posts. As I mentioned earlier, these are indicated by this number on the main Discussion Board page. Click the number to view only the unread posts in that thread. Notice that reading them in this view will not automatically mark them as read. You need to click the Mark as Read button at the bottom of each post. When done, click OK to return to the thread list. Don’t forget to reach out to your schools designated AT if you have any questions or issues using the Discussion Board. In our next video we we’ll cover how to easily grade your students’ activity in the discussion board.

Discussion Board: Grading

In our last video we talked about how to actively participate in the forums and threads. This video will cover all of the ins and outs of grading discussions in your course. Most likely the developer of your course has already outlined how the discussions should be graded in your course. Reach out to the course contact if you have any questions. You can assign discussion grades in a forum or thread. These grades are based on student participation, on the quality of their posts, or a combination of the two. Note that there may be a rubric attached to your Discussion Board where you can easily select specific criteria and apply it to the grade. There are three ways to access the grading area for discussion boards. First, go to Grade Center, then Needs Grading. The Needs Grading area will be covered at length in a later video in this series but for now, find an item categorized as “Discussion” and click the name of the student under the “User Attempt” column. The second way to access discussion grading is by going to the Full Grade Center, finding the column for the forum you wish to grade, and selecting Grade User Activity from the drop-down menu for a specific cell in that column. Again, refer to our later video on the Grade Center for more details. The third, and easiest way to access discussion grading is by clicking the discussion forum title and clicking Grade Discussion Forum on the action bar. On the Grade Discussion Forum Users page you’ll see a list of all the students in your course and under the posts column, the number of times they posted in that forum. Note that you can also email students from this list by checking the box next to their name and clicking Email. Click the Grade button in the row of the student you wish to grade first. On the Grade Discussion Forum page, a collection of the student's posts made to the graded forum appears. Because you can assign a forum grade based on multiple threads, all messages posted by a student are included for review. To select which posts appear and in which order, you can filter and sort posts using the Filter function and the Sort By and Order drop-down lists on the action bar. The grading sidebar contains the following areas: Forum Statistics: Click to access the drop-down area that includes information about a user's posts, such as Total Posts, Date of Last Post, Average Post Length, and Average Post Position. Click the down-pointing arrow next to the current user's name to view a list and select a user with posts ready to grade. The selected user's posts appear in the content frame. Use the left- and right-pointing arrows to navigate to the previous or next student. And this is the area to add a grade, feedback, and private notes for yourself. In the content frame, evaluate the currently selected user's posts. In the grading sidebar, type a grade. If you associated a rubric for this forum, expand and complete the rubric. To edit an existing grade, simply click in the Grade box and change the grade. Optionally, you can type Feedback for the student here that will appear next to their grade in My Grades. In the Add Notes section, make notes that appear only to you (the instructor). You can use the spell check function in the bottom of each text box. Click this icon to open the full content editor giving you access to all the content editor functions. Click Submit to add the grade, feedback, and grading notes to the Grade Center.

Wikis: Participating Grading

Students use a wiki to collaborate on shared content from different times and locations. They can view previous changes, comment on content or changes, include new content, and revise existing content. Similar to the discussion board, you act as a facilitator instead of the provider of all course content. Unlike a blog, which can be quite personal, wikis require intense collaboration, where information is linked to and built upon. You can grade student contributions to a wiki or use it solely for course content review. In either instance, a student can contribute multiple pages to a single wiki and make unlimited revisions to pages submitted by any course member. You can also enable the group wiki tool to help groups share and interact. You can view all changes to all pages in a wiki. You can view the changes at a high level, and you can drill down to see information about contributions by any individual. Let’s look at how to edit and manage the settings for a wiki in your course. Go to course tools and then wikis. This will take you to a page that lists all of the wikis in your course. Click the drop down menu for a wiki and select Edit Properties. Here you can edit the Wiki information and date and time restrictions. You can also adjust the wiki participation settings by closing or opening the wiki to further edits and commenting. Lastly, you can adjust the grading settings and due date here. Note that by default, participants will appear in “needs grading” after the designated number of wiki page saves. When you’re done modifying the wiki settings, click submit. Note that you can easily adjust the participation settings from the list of wikis in your course by checking the box next to a wiki and making a selection from the availability, student access and student comment access menus. To view, interact and grade a wiki, click the name of the wiki here. Any course member can edit a course wiki page and any group member can edit a group wiki page, unless you have disabled this function. You might choose to disable editing when it is time to grade the wiki pages. However, you can still edit student pages. All course members, including instructors, edit in the same way. When a user is editing a wiki page, it is locked for a duration of 120 seconds to prevent others from editing the same page. Users are informed that another user is currently editing the page. The lock will expire in 120 seconds regardless of a user's activity/inactivity. After 120 seconds, another user can start editing the page and a new 120 seconds lock is placed on the page. You cannot edit the lock or amount of time. Because a wiki stores each version in its history, which includes who made changes, you have an opportunity to retrieve information about the development and contributions for any individual. You can click History in a page’s contextual menu to see how a page was modified, view any version, and compare two versions side by side. Click okay to return to the wiki topic page. To create a new wiki page, click Create Wiki Page here. To edit a wiki page: Select the page to review and edit from the sidebar. The wiki page opens in the content frame. In the sidebar, access the page’s contextual menu and click Edit. -OR- Click Edit Wiki Content next to the page’s title in the content frame. On the Edit Wiki Page, you can make changes to the name and content of the page. When you’re done click Submit. As I mentioned before, the process to edit a wiki page is the same for students. To comment on a page, click comment here. When grading is enabled, a column is created automatically in the Grade Center. You can view all the pages a student authored and edited as you determine the grade on the Participant’s Contribution page. Note that the grade applies to the whole wiki, not an individual wiki page. You access the Participant’s Contribution page in the following ways: In the Full Grade Center and the Needs grading page. Or you go to the wikis tool page through course tools, access a wiki and click Participation and Grading on the action bar. In the content frame, click a user’s name to view their page modifications and access the grading sidebar. Alternatively, in the sidebar, click All to access the drop-down list with all members who have contributed to the wiki and select a user. Once you select a student’s name a list of page modifications appear. To view a user’s exact changes select an item from the User’s Modification column. A new window appears and the user’s changes are highlighted. Close the window or click OK in the bottom right when done. A summary of the student’s participation is located in the grading sidebar. Assign a grade by typing it here, add feedback to the student here and click submit when you’re done grading. To navigate to a new student, click the arrows on either side of the students name or select their name from the drop down list.

You can use blog writing assignments as another medium for reflective learning. With this type of assignment, students are expected to display their research, analytical, and communication skills through a series of commentaries meant for public consumption and comment. Only enrolled users can view blogs in your course. Similar to journals, you can use blogs for a graded assignment or gather opinions and information without assigning a grade. However, remember that journals are intended to be a private form of communication. There are two main ways you can choose to allow students to participate in blogs: You can create a course blog and determine the topic you want addressed. All course members can add blog entries about that one topic and comment on blog entries. Or there are Individual Blogs. Each person can add entries only to their own blog, based on an assigned topic or maybe a topic of their choosing. And all other course members can view and add comments to it. Blogs consist of two elements: Blog entries which include Text, images, links, multimedia, mashups, and attachments added by course members open for comments. And Comments; which are remarks or responses to blog entries made by other course members, including the instructor. A blog is different from a discussion board because even though it allows for responses via commenting, a blog is not really intended for discussion. To put it differently, a blog would be graded based on individual entries, and a discussion board would be graded based on a main post as well as responses to others. If there is a blog assignment in your course, the blog will already be set up for you. We’ll look at how a blog is created as a means of understanding how to customize a blog’s settings: Start by going to the Control Panel, expand the Course Tools section and click Blogs. On the Blogs listing page, all of the blog topics are listed. To edit a blog access the contextual menu and select Edit. To create a new blog click Create Blog on the action bar. On the Create Blog page, type a name and optional instructions and make the blog available. Select the Display After and Display Until check boxes to enable the date and time selections. Display restrictions do not affect the blog availability, only when it appears. You can leave these unchecked if you want the blog to always be available. In the Blog Participation section, decide if the blog is for individuals or the course. You may also allow some anonymous posting by clicking here. In the Blog Settings section, select Monthly or Weekly Index Entries. Weekly indexing is usually best for Brandman’s 8 week courses. Optionally, select these check boxes to allow users to edit and delete entries, or delete comments. In the Grade Settings section, select No grading or the Grade option and type the number of Points possible. Points possible will apply to one or more entries made by a user to the blog topic. After you enable grading, a column is created automatically in the Grade Center. It is permanently gradable, and you cannot change the setting to No grading. Optionally, select the check box for Show participants in "needs grading" status and from the drop-down list, select the number of entries required. Applying this setting will show the needs grading icon in the Grade Center and place the entries in the queue on the Needs Grading page after the specified number of entries are made. Optionally, add a rubric. To learn more, see our video on Rubrics later in this series. When you’re done click Submit. To access a blog and begin interacting with your students, click the title of the blog. On the action bar, click Create Blog Entry, add your thoughts, media and other content, then click post entry when your done. Below the action bar, the Blog Instructions are expanded by default. You can minimize them by clicking here. In the sidebar, you can expand the Blog Details section to display information about the current selection, including the author and number of entries and comments. The blog details come in very handy when grading a student’s blog activity. Click the right-pointing arrow to collapse the sidebar for more viewing room for entries. Click the four arrows to view the blog entries and sidebar in full screen. For All Course Members, click the down-pointing arrow to view a list and select a member. The selected member’s entries appear in the content frame. Optionally, click Show members without entries to view or grade those who have not created a blog post yet. The Index section displays the titles of the entries created during the selected time period. Click the minus sign to collapse the title list. Use the left- and right-pointing arrows to navigate to the previous or next student. For graded blogs, icons designate the status of a user’s activity. The needs grading icon—the exclamation mark—indicates that a user has met the minimum activity for grading you set for the blog. The in progress icon appears when a user has some activity, but has not yet met the minimum number required to trigger needs grading status. In the grading sidebar, provide a grade and feedback for a student and click submit to post the grade to the Grade Center and My Grades.

Journals Participating Grading

Different from Wikis, Blogs, and the Discussion Board, the Journal tool is used for private communication between the instructor and the student. Students can use a journal to collect observations, thoughts, concerns, notes, progress, and opinions that may not be shared otherwise. Journaling can build rapport between instructors and students, contributing to a positive learning experience. In the educational environment, journals need to be more than just a list of what a student did. The writing experience is used to communicate the thinking process: the how and why for each activity and thoughts about the activity at its conclusion. Each journal created in a course represents a single topic. Journal assignments typically come in two forms: As a single course Journal, where students receive one grade for multiple entries over the span of an entire course, or multiple journals placed in different weeks, each with their own topic and a grade for each of those topics. If there’s a journal assignment in your course it has most likely already been created. But to better understand how a journal works, let’s first go over how a journal is set up initially. Go to Course Tools and click on Journals. This page will list all of the Journals currently set up in your course. To edit an existing journal, select edit from the contextual menu. To create a Journal click “Create Journal”. Now you want to decide if this a course journal or a journal for a single week. Once you’ve made that decision, give the journal a name in the Name textbox and write specific instructions in the textbox area. These instructions will be visible to the students at the top of the journal topic page where they create their entries. Next, choose yes to make the journal available and unless you want to limit the availability of the journal to a specific timeframe, go to Journal Date and Time Restrictions. You can decide how you want all of the entries in this journal indexed by selecting Monthly or Weekly. Because our courses are generally 8 weeks, it’s better to index them by week. To allow students to edit and delete entries and comments, check these boxes located under Journal Settings. If you’d like to make it so that journals are public instead of private check this box. However, journals are better left as private communication between student and instructor. If you want a journal type assignment that is public, consider creating a blog instead. In Grade Settings you will decide whether the journal should be graded or not. To enable grading click Grade: Points Possible under Grade Settings and type in the amount of points this journal will be worth. If this is a course journal, the grade will be for multiple entries. If it’s a single weekly journal, the grade will be for only one entry. Then decide when “Needs Grading” status should be assigned. For example, if this is a course journal requiring an entry for each week of the course, consider changing it to display needs grading after 8 entries. Otherwise, just leave it at one. Assign a due date and a rubric under Grade Settings. When done, click submit. A student accesses a journal by clicking on Tools and then Journals. To make the links to journals more accessible, links to the journals can be added to the course menu, or they can be added to a specific weekly content area. To add a link to a content area, click on Tools in the action bar, then Journals. Note that you can either add a link to the journals page that lists all of the journals or link to a specific journal. The latter is better for accessing a weekly journal. Note that you can also create a new journal by clicking on create new journal. Select the journal you want to link to and click next. On the page that follows, the name of the journal populates in the link name textbox area. You can add a description for the journal link in the textbox below the link name. This is typically the same as the Journal instructions you created earlier. Review the availability options and when you’re done, click submit. Your journal link is added to the bottom of the content area. To comment on and grade journal entries, access the journal from Needs Grading, the Full Grade Center or by click on Journals under Course Tools. From the journals page, the number of entries and new entries in indicated under the Entries column. Click on the name of the journal you wish to grade. Click drop down on the right with your name to access all course members who have made entries in this journal. Click the drop down again to view all course members even if they have not made any entries. Click a user's name with a number. The user's journal entry or entries open in the content frame. To comment on a journal entry, click the comment button at the bottom of an entry. Type you comment in the space provided and click “add”. Type a point total in the Grade box. If there is a rubric associated with this graded journal, expand and complete the rubric. To edit an existing grade, click in the Grade box and change the grade. Optionally, type Feedback for the student here. In the Add Notes section, make notes that appear only to you. The icon for Click to open full content editor gives you access to all the content editor functions. Click Submit to add the grade, feedback, and grading notes to My Grades and the Grade Center.

Grade Center Needs Grading

If you have a heavy grading load, the Needs Grading page can help you determine what needs attention first and allows you to access it quickly. You can view all items ready for grading. You can also view individual assignments, group assignments, and test attempts, as well as blog and journal entries, wiki page saves, and discussion posts ready for grading or review. For courses with a large number of students and gradable items, you can use the information and functions on the Needs Grading page to determine and organize your grading tasks. For example, you can sort and filter the list, allowing you to grade the most urgent items first. Let’s take a closer look. Access the Needs Grading page in the Grade Center section of the Control Panel. Click Grade All on the action bar to begin grading and reviewing immediately. The Grade All function places all attempts in a queue for easy navigation among items. The items in the queue appear in the order they appear on the Needs Grading page. Note that tests and other assignments with a grading status of Attempt in Progress do not appear on the Needs Grading page. To organize your list, sort a column by clicking the column title. The sorted list remains in effect until you change it or log out. The following columns appear on the Needs Grading page: Category: An easy way to sort through attempts to group all assignments or tests together. Item Name: For sorting attempts by alphabetical order or reverse alphabetical order. User Attempt shows the student's name. The number of attempts for the item is listed in parentheses. Click a user's name to go directly to the attempt and begin grading. Date Submitted: Sort attempts by the date and time students submitted the attempts. You may find this useful when a large number of attempts must be graded by a specific deadline. And finally, Due Date: If you provided a due date when the item was created, sort attempts by due date and grade items that are due first. Click here to apply filters to narrow the list by Category, Item, User, and Date Submitted. If you apply a filter, only the filtered items appear in the list and in the queue. For example, make selections in both the Category and User drop-down lists to display tests submitted by a particular user. Click Go to display the filtered items on the Needs Grading page. The filtered list remains in effect until you edit the filter choices or log out. Click the X to collapse the Filter field. The total number of items to grade appears above the list of items here. After you grade attempts, they do not appear on the Needs Grading page and the number of items updates to reflect the current number that needs to be graded. If you filter the list, the number reflects how many items match the current filter settings. Access an item's contextual menu for additional grading options. For assignments, you can select Grade All Users or Grade with User Names Hidden. For tests, you can also select Grade by Question and View Attempts. Interactive items such as blogs, journals, wikis, and discussion posts, which can be set to go into needs grading status after a certain number of activities, also have the option to Reset All, which clears that activity counter and moves the item out of Needs Grading status. A total number of attempts for the selected item is listed in parentheses. Click Show All, down here, to display up to 1,000 items on one page. Click Edit Paging to change the number of items to view per page.

The Grade Center in Blackboard Learn is more than just a way to record students' grades. It is a dynamic and interactive tool, allowing you to record data, calculate grades, and monitor student progress. You can generate reports to communicate information to administrators and other stakeholders. You can determine which assigned grades to show to your students in My Grades, including columns displaying performance results. In the Grade Center, you can provide and manage your students' grades for assignments, tests, discussion posts, journals, blogs, and wikis, and for ungraded items, such as surveys or self-tests. You can also create grade columns for any activities or requirements you want to grade, such as special projects, participation, or attendance. You can access the Grade Center from the Control Panel. Expand the Grade Center section to display the links to the Needs Grading page, the Full Grade Center, and the smart views. Click Full Grade Center. There’s a lot going on in the Full Grade Center so let’s quickly go over what everything is. The Grade Center resembles a spreadsheet. Each row is populated by a user in your course and each column includes information for an item, such as an assignment, test, graded blog entry, or survey. There are also columns that calculate total and weighted grades. Action bar: contains functions and drop-down lists specific to the Grade Center: Create Column or Create a Calculated Column like total points, the Manage menu which we’ll come back to later. Reports, a Filter option, and the work offline menu where you can download all the grade center data to edit in a program like excel. Below the action bar, you have an Email function and different ways to Sort Columns and Order the information. Grade Information Bar includes Information about a selected column, such as type of grade and points possible. Point to a Grade Center column title and details appear at the top. In this same row, you can view when data was last saved as well. Then we have the main Grid or spreadsheet which includes the Columns, rows, and cells that make up the current view of the Grade Center data. Use the horizontal and vertical scroll bars to navigate through the Grade Center columns and rows. When you navigate to another course area and return to the Grade Center, you will see the same rows and columns on the page from the last visit. The view remains in effect until you use the scroll bars again or log out. Click the Icon Legend for an explanation of the symbols used in the cells. The two most common symbols you will see are the Needs Grading yellow exclamation point and the attempt in progress. Lastly, the Edit Rows Displayed button allows you to change the number of rows appearing in the grid. Now that we’ve covered what everything is, let me show you some different ways to manage and view the grade center information. Understanding how to organize this information will save you valuable time while grading, especially if you have a large roster. Let’s start by looking at the filter feature. To narrow your view of the Grade Center data, click Filter to expand the field and select an option from the drop-down lists: Current View: Includes the Full Grade Center view, Smart Views, and Grading Periods. You can select one of the views to use as the default view by clicking the Set Current View as Default icon next to the Current View drop-down list. You can select other views from the Current View drop-down list at any time. Category: Includes all default categories and any you have created. And Status, including Needs Grading or In progress. In some instances, you can make another selection in an additional drop-down list to further narrow the columns and users that appear in the grid. In the Grade Center, all cells and column headers have a contextual menu. Some important options in a column’s contextual menu include: Quick Column Information Displays information about the column in a pop-up window. Grade Attempts Provide a grade for an attempt made for this item. Assignment File Download Allows you to select and download files students have attached to their assignments. Hide from Students (on/off) Hide this column from users. If you hide the column, the column remains in the Grade Center grid, but your students will not see it in My Grades. Hide from Instructor View Hides the column from view in the Grade Center. To show the column, point to Manage on the action bar to access the drop-down list and select Column Organization. To see the contextual menu for a cell in the Grade Center grid, move your mouse pointer over the cell. Click the arrow icon to access the contextual menu. When you access the contextual menu for a user's name cell, you have options to hide a user's row, hide other rows to focus your attention on one row, or email a user. You can view which items are visible to a user based on availability and adaptive release rules or which items a user marked reviewed. You can also view the User Statistics page which provides statistical information related to a user's performance. Let’s go back to the manage menu in the action bar so we can cover some of the more common features there: Clicking “Grading Color Codes” lets you establish User-defined rules to apply color to the cells in the Grade Center grid, either by grade or status. Color coding the Grade Center provides visual indicators to help you interpret information quickly. Categories and Smart views lets you view and manage the different categories (like tests, assignments, etc.) and Smart Views, which are custom made views of the grade center data created by you and saved for continued use. Column Organization: displays a table view of the Grade Center with functions to change the order and visibility of columns. From this page, you can also assign columns to grading periods and categories. Changes you make on this page are for your view of the Grade Center only and do not change which columns appear to students in My Grades. So, now that you know how to navigate and manage the information in the Grade Center, let’s look at how Grades are entered: Some grades are entered automatically, for example tests are scored automatically and recorded in the corresponding Grade Center column. Some test questions require manual grading such as Essay questions. You can manually edit grades that are scored automatically by clicking on the cell and entering a grade. This is called manually overriding a grade. Other grades must be entered manually. You can manually enter grades in the following areas: Directly in cells on the main Grade Center page. By clicking View Grade Details from the contextual menu of a cell And from the Grade Assignment or Grade Test page. For more information on Grading Assignments and Tests, view the videos later in this series. For some items, such as gradable blogs or discussion forums, you can enter grades from the tool without having to navigate to the Grade Center. After you assign grades outside of the grade center, you can always change them by clicking on an individual cell. The grade center can be very overwhelming when you first encounter it. However, it is probably the tool you will use the most in Blackboard so it’s important to take time to familiarize yourself with all of its major functions. Take time to practice with it and be sure to reach out to your school’s designated AT if you have any questions or concerns.

Clearing_an_Assignment_Attempt

Most assignments are set up to only allow one submission attempt by default. This means that when a student submits their paper for that assignment, they are not able to make any additional submissions because the maximum amount of “attempts” have been made. As mentioned in previous videos, the number of attempts allowed per assignment can be changed on the Edit Assignment page. In the event that a student mistakenly submits the wrong document or you’ve asked the student to submit the paper again in a different format, the first attempt must be cleared, ignored, or an additional attempt should be given. Let me show you how you can do this. From the Full Grade Center, access a gradable item’s contextual menu by placing your mouse of the cell and clicking the arrow. Select View Grade Details. View grade details provide a lot of really good detailed information on the grading of a particular assignment. The top section provides a summary of the status of the assignment. You can exempt a student from a certain assignment by clicking exempt or you can click View Attempts to view and grade the assignment. This lower section has four tabs: Attempts, Manual Override, Column Details, and Grade History. In this video, we’ll just be focusing on the Attempts section. This section lists all of the submission attempts for a specific student. It tells you the date and time the assignment was created and submitted. If a due date was set and the student submitted after the due date, it will indicate LATE here. The next column is the value or grade for the assignment. If the assignment hasn’t been graded it will show the Needs Grading icon. If the assignment has been graded, the feedback and notes you made on that attempt are shown here. Now, notice that in the last column you have several options: You can View Attempt, Clear or Ignore as well as edit the grade. If a student accidentally submits the wrong document for an assignment, you’ll want to click “Clear Attempt”. This will completely remove the attempt from Blackboard and open the assignment up for the student to resubmit the assignment. If a student submits a rough draft of the assignment for you to quickly review, you can click “Ignore Attempt” so that Blackboard will keep that attempt for you to review later, but will not count against the maximum number of attempts. If you require a student to submit a second draft of an assignment that you’ve graded, click “Allow Additional Attempt”. This will keep the graded attempt in Blackboard and allow the student to submit the paper one more time. You can click “Allow Additional Attempt” after the maximum number of attempts has been made as many times as you like. However, if your plan is to allow multiple drafts of an assignment, consider editing the assignment settings to allow multiple attempts. For more information on editing assignment settings, view the Assignments video later in this series.

Assignments Editing
Assignments Grading

Your course will most certainly have multiple assignments in it, requiring students to create and upload a document that you will then review, grade and provide feedback. To edit an assignment, locate the assignment in the content area and from the contextual menu, select edit. You will then land on the Edit Assignment page. The first section deals with assignment information. Here you can adjust the name of the assignment and the description if necessary. Attach a pdf of more detailed assignment instructions or a pdf of the grading rubric by clicking Browse My Computer and locating the file on your computer. The most common edit you will make to assignments is entering a specific due date. As we’ve mentioned in previous videos, providing due dates for your assignments improves course organization and student success because notifications are sent to students to tell them when something is due. Check the box here and click the calendar icon to select the date. To select a specific time, click here. The next section on this page deals with how the assignment will be graded. First, the points possible for this particular assignment are entered here. To attach a rubric to this assignment for easy grading, click here. For more info on rubrics, see our video later in this series. The rest of the grading section is logically organized into three groups: Submission Details, Grading Options, and Display of Grades. Click to expand the section for more options. Under Submission details you can decide if this is an individual assignment or a group assignment. Most assignments will be set up as an individual assignment and unless you’re utilizing the groups features in Blackboard, you don’t need to worry about making an assignment a Group submission. If you’d like students to turn in multiple drafts of an assignment to receive feedback before they turn in a final draft, you can increase the number of submission attempts. A single attempt means that they can submit one copy of their assignment and then prevents them from submitting any others. If the student submits the wrong document by mistake, they will not be able to correct that issue until the attempt has been cleared. For more information on this, view our video on clearing an attempt. Under grading options you can choose to grade assignments anonymously and to assign other graders to help you with your grading tasks. Display of grades allows you to Choose how grades will appear in the Grade Center and to students in My Grades. Note that only your Primary selection appears to students. You can also choose whether or not to include the assignment score in grading calculations by clicking here. Make sure to leave this checked unless you are no longer including the assignment in the total points calculation. Based on the assignment requirements, you can choose not to show the grade and statistical information to students in My Grades by checking this box here. The last section deals with the availability of the assignment link in the content area. If you don’t want students to submit the assignment until a certain time, simply limit the availability by selecting display after and display until dates. When you’re done making changes, click submit. Student submit an assignment by clicking on the title of the assignment. They are provided with the assignment information first and then a place to submit their assignment. Most often, students will be uploading an assignment document, but students do have the option to write their submission directly into Blackboard by clicking Write Submission. If they are submitting a document typed in a word processor, they would click Browse my Computer and locate the file on their computer. If the student has any additional comments about the submission, they can enter them here, otherwise, they would click submit. After a student submits an attempt, you are notified of this submission in Need’s Grading and the Full Grade Center. To grade an assignment, access the attempt through one of these locations. I’ll go to Needs Grading and select one of the assignments listed. For more information on accessing an attempt, view our Grade Center videos earlier in this series. Once you accessed the attempt you will land on the Grade Assignment page. On the Grade Assignment page, you can annotate directly within the browser on files uploaded and converted for display in the inline viewer. You can assign a grade, provide feedback, and make notes for yourself. On the action bar, you’ll find the following functions: Navigate to other attempts using the arrows next to a user's name. Click here to hide usernames so that you can grade anonymously. Enable anonymous grading during the creation stage to eliminate grading bias for high-stakes assignments. To jump to another attempt to view or grade click here. Expand the assignment instructions here. Submitted files open within the grading screen. Original formatting and embedded images are preserved. If a student has uploaded an unsupported file, you are prompted to download it. From the inline viewer toolbar, you have the ability to add annotations throughout the student’s paper in the form of drawings and text comments. Click the Comment function and then click anywhere on the document. Type your comment and click Post. Click away from the comment to close your first comment and begin a new one. Click cancel if you do not wish to create a new comment. Instructors and Students access the comments by clicking on the blue speech bubbles. Reply by typing a response below the text of your comment and clicking Post. To delete a comment, click the trash can icon in the top right corner. Click close when your done working with comments. Click the pencil icon to add a drawing. Click and drag your mouse on the paper to begin drawing. When your happy with your drawing, click Save below the drawing, or remove it by clicking Delete. Click done when you’re finished drawing. Assignment submissions created with the content editor are not compatible with inline grading. Submissions of this type show in the window, but annotation is not available. In the grading sidebar, grade the submission. You can also view the assignment details, the grading rubric, and other attempts for this assignment by the same user. After assigning a grade, return to this screen to review the grade and comments. Click the pencil icon to override the grade. Under the feedback section, give suggestions, encouragement, and overall comments about the submission. Open the content editor to format your comments, attach a file, and check your spelling. Add notes and files that only you can see by clicking here. For example, keep track of students' progress during a revision process and refer to your notes when assigning the final grade. To save the original file to your computer without the annotations you made to the left, click here. This is useful if you’d like to annotate the assignment in Microsoft Word. If you do this, to upload the file so the student can download and view it, click the paperclip icon here.

Welcome to the LiveText training for Signature Assignments. LiveText by Watermark is used in the School of Education and Nursing primarily for signature assignments. It is also used for professional dispositions inventory, fieldwork formative and summative assessments and course portfolios. LiveText allows the university to assess our students based on our program learning outcomes. This is used for WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC) accreditation, NCATE, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, and CCNE, so we need to have this data readily available in order to demonstrate we are meeting our student learning outcomes. For this reason it is vital these signature assignments are completed properly so we can adhere to accreditation standards. First, you will need to set up your LiveText account. If you were previously a student, please contact LiveText support to edit your student account to put an “XX” on your Brandman email address and your Brandman ID# because you cannot use the same aliases for your new LiveText faculty account. Once this has been done, please then create your new faculty account and please make sure that you input your Brandman ID# and your Brandman email address in order for you to be connected to your courses. As a new instructor, you will need a seven-digit key code to obtain your free LiveText account. The School of Education and the School of Nursing each have their own distinct key codes. Once you complete this training, you will be provided with the key codes. Please use the key code associated with the school you are teaching for. Take your key code and go to www.livetext.com. Click on the Register option in the upper right corner of the screen, then scroll down and select Register again. Select Faculty Member and then enter your key code. Follow the remaining prompts and be sure to use your Brandman University email and your Brandman ID# during registration. Once you have registered and logged into your account you will land on the Dashboard. Your dashboard lists all of your active assignments for the course or courses you are assigned to. You’ll notice for each assignment on your dashboard there are associated bars that are color-coded in red, yellow or green. Red indicates you have students who have not yet submitted their assignment. Yellow indicates you have students who have submitted the assignment but are waiting to be graded. And Green indicates you have graded the assignment. The number listed under the colored bar represents the number of students for that category. You may also hover over the bar to get the stats for that assignment. Click on the color bar or the Assess link to go straight to the Submissions and Grading area for the selected assignment. On the following page, you will see assignments Awaiting Submission, Awaiting Assessment and/or those that are Completed. Click on the name of the student under Awaiting Assessment to begin grading. On the following page, you will want to download the student's submission to review, which is found under the Documents to be Assessed section. **Note, there may be a video as an assignment, in which case, if the video is under 1 GB, it will appear with a play button and you can watch it. LiveText does not allow video files to be over 1 GB.** On the right-hand side you will see several options. Request Resubmission allows you to send the submission back to the student so they can resubmit if there was an error in the upload. The Save button allows you to save your grading progress but not officially submit the assessment. The Submit Assignment button will submit your grading information and provide it to the student. Cancel will cancel your current session if you did not intend on grading this particular assignment and take you back to the Submissions & Grades page. Below those options, you will see the grading area. Once you grade the student using the provided rubric, be sure to enter the grade in the Grade box. Below the Grade box, you will be able to provide comments back to the student. You are also able to attach documents using this Attach button just below the comment box. Finally, you will use the provided rubric below all of these options. It is recommended you use the Expand Rubrics option to better view the rubric. This will provide a popup window of the rubric, which you can resize to better evaluate the student’s submission. With the rubric open you will assess the student according to the provided criterion. All you need to do is click on the box that best matches what the student has earned and the rubric will keep that selection for you unless you change it. Note that you can also provide individualized comments for each criterion by clicking on the speech bubble with the plus sign located on the left side of the page. This will expand a comment section for you to type in additional comments that are specific to the rubric. Once you are done, note the total points in the lower right corner of the screen so you can input this into the Grade box. Then be sure to click Save and Close in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Input the grade from the rubric into the Grade box. When you are officially done with this assessment, click the Submit Assessment button. Once this is done, you will have to go into Blackboard and manually enter the points in your grade center column since Blackboard and LiveText are not connected. If a student does not submit a signature assignment to LiveText, please fill in all of the boxes with “Not completed” in the rubric and then record the grade as a “zero” in LiveText while also reporting the grade in Blackboard. If you have any questions or need additional assistance, please contact your school’s designated contact. For the School of Education, please email [email protected] For the School of Nursing, please contact Gail Hock at [email protected]

As an instructor for Brandman University, you may teach a course that includes a Signature Assignment. You will know there is a Signature Assignment in the course you are teaching because it will be noted in the syllabus. As a best practice to promote academic integrity, all Signature Assignments for the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Business and Professional Studies are submitted as Turnitin assignments. Turnitin provides Brandman the ability to collect learning outcomes data to improve student learning and educational effectiveness. Once a Signature Assignment is submitted to turnitin.com, an originality report will be generated, which provides a summary of matching or highly similar text found in a submitted paper. To grade a Signature Assignment, first go to your course in Blackboard. Next, click Course Tools and then select Turnitin Assignments. On the Turnitin assignments page, you will see the Signature Assignment listed. Click the title of the assignment. Here you will see your Turnitin inbox, which displays all of the submitted assignments. When viewing your Turnitin inbox, it is important to remember that the color of the report icon indicates the Similarity Index of the paper, or the percentage of matches between a submission and Turnitin’s database. If the icon is blue, there is no matching text in a submitted paper with turnitin’s database. Green means that the submitted paper has somewhere between one word and 24% of its text that matches turnitin.com’s database. Yellow means the submitted paper has 25 to 49% of its text that matches. Orange means 50-74% matches. And red indicates that 75-100% of the text of a submitted paper matches the turnitin database. It is important to look closely at the similarities identified by turnitin.com because a match found in a submitted paper does not always mean the paper was plagiarized. We recommend that you take the time to review the similarities to make that determination. Click the title of the student’s assignment you want to grade. The student’s paper opens in the Feedback Studio. The Feedback Studio is a grading tool provided by Turnitin. Once students submit their Signature Assignments via the Turnitin assignment submission link inside the course, they are automatically added to the repository. After opening a paper, you are automatically being shown the feedback layer within the Feedback Studio. You will know you have the feedback layer on because the feedback layer icon is highlighted in blue. You can also view the similarity layer by activating the layer here. You will see the similarity layer icon is now red, indicating it is active. To zoom the paper in and out, use the slider at the bottom of the page. You may wish to add text or leave a voice comment to the paper. There are two ways to leave a written comment. You can use GradeMark’s pre-existing comments, called QuickMarks, or you can type your own unique comments. To use QuickMarks, click the QuickMarks icon then click and drag a comment to the section of the paper where you want the comment to appear. To type your own comments, click the area on the paper you would like to leave a comment, then click the Comments icon. Note that you may also select a QuickMark from this menu as well. After clicking on the comment icon, type your comment in the textbox, and click away from the comment to automatically save. After your comment is saved, it will appear as a speech bubble icon. This icon can be dragged anywhere on the paper. You can view or edit your comment by clicking on the icon again. To delete a comment, click on the icon and then click the Trashcan icon. A voice comment can be up to three minutes long. Click the record button (the leftmost, circular button) to start recording. During recording, the record button will change to a pause button. Click pause to pause the recording. Alternatively, click the trash can icon to delete your current voice comment. Once you have stopped recording completely, your comment will then be available for playback and can also be saved by clicking the Save icon. If you need to reset the audio comment and start again, click the discard button (the rightmost button) at anytime. This will delete your current voice comment. Now, it’s time to grade the Signature Assignment. Click the Rubrics or Form icon. Each Signature Assignment has a carefully designed and vetted rubric, which is pre-loaded to the GradeMark repository. In order to ensure that the data is collected from Signature Assignments, it is mandatory that instructors grade signature assignments correctly. The Signature Assignment should have the turnitin rubric attached. If you find that there is no rubric attached, you can attach the rubric to the assignment. Please note that you will not need to repeat the process of attaching the rubric after you have attached it to the first assignment submission you grade within GradeMark. To attach a rubric to the assignment, click the cogwheel icon to open the rubric library. Since the repository is organized alphabetically by course number, a rubric that does not match your class may display. Click the list icon to the left of this page, to open the rubric library. Find and select the rubric labeled with the corresponding course and assignment name. Once you select the corresponding rubric, the GradeMark rubric will automatically populate with the criteria and performance-level information. It may take a moment to load. Even though the rubric has been accessed in GradeMark, you must attach the rubric to the assignment in order to load the rubric to GradeMark so that the grades will automatically be entered in the Grade Center in Blackboard. Click the Attached to Assignment ON/OFF toggle button located at the bottom left-hand corner in order to attach the rubric. To ensure that the rubic has been attached to the assignment, the ON/OFF toggle at the bottom left-hand side of the rubric screen should indicate ON and be highlighted in blue. Review the rubric, and then click Close so you can begin grading. Please note that you cannot edit the rubric. If you see any discrepancies, please contact your school’s Academic Technology Support Specialist. Now you can begin grading the Signature Assignment by moving the grading slider in the column to the right. Please be aware that you may need to scroll down in the column to use the entire rubric. The description of each grading area is listed below. When you finish grading be sure to click Apply to Grade to save. This is an important final step. By clicking this, grades are automatically calculated and populated in the Grade Center within your Blackboard course. Note that you can open the rubric in a larger window by clicking on the “Use full size rubric in a new window” icon here. When using this view, you only need to select the scale that applies to the criteria for this student’s paper. Once you have completed this, click Apply to Grade. Click close to get back to the paper. You will now see the grade has been updated and automatically saved. To grade the next paper, click the right-arrow at the top of the page. Once you have completed grading all student papers, you can exit the window by clicking the x. This will take you back to your Blackboard course. Students can then access GradeMark to review comments, print, or save a copy of the graded assignment with the completed rubric. If you would like to check your students’ grades, go to the Grade Center by clicking Grade Center and then Full Grade Center. Locate the Signature Assignment column to verify students’ grades. For any assistance throughout this process, contact your school’s Academic Technology Support Specialists: For Arts & Sciences: [email protected] And for Business & Professional Studies: [email protected]

Rubrics are made up of rows and columns. The rows correspond to the various criteria of an assignment. The columns correspond to the level of achievement expressed for each criterion. A description and point value for each cell in the rubric define the evaluation and score of an assignment. Creating and associating rubrics save you valuable time during the grading process. First, let’s look at how to create a new rubric in Blackboard. On the Control Panel, expand the Course Tools section and click Rubrics. On the Rubrics page, click Create Rubric on the action bar. Type a name and optionally, provide a description of the rubric to make it easier to associate it with relevant assignments. New rubrics default to three rows and three columns. Edit the rubric grid so that it corresponds to the type of feedback and scoring appropriate for the assignment. You can Click Add Row to add a new criterion at the bottom of the grid. Then Click Add Column to add a new level of achievement to the grid. Next, you’ll Choose a Rubric Type from the drop-down list: No Points is a rubric that provides Feedback only. Points: is a rubric with a Single point value for each Level of Achievement. Point Range: means there will be a Range of values for each Level of Achievement. Percent rubrics are Flexible depending on each assignment's possible points. And lastly, Percent Range rubrics provide a range of values for each Level of Achievement. During the grading process, you select the appropriate percentage level for a particular Level of Achievement and the system calculates the points earned by multiplying the weight x achievement percentage x item points. Click Edit from a label's contextual menu to change their names. A label identifies the rows and columns with heading names. Type a point or percentage value for each row. Type a description defining the criteria and the associated Level of Achievement. Each cell has a 1,000-character limit. You can reorder rows and columns by clicking the reordering functions located above the labels. After you use a rubric for grading, you cannot edit it. You can copy the rubric to create a duplicate rubric that you can edit. When you are using percent-based rubrics, select from the following options: On the action bar, select the Show Criteria Weight check box to show or hide criteria weights. If additional rows are added when weights are hidden, weights for new criteria are distributed equally. Use the Balance Weights function after adding a new row to keep all criteria weighted equally. If you prefer individual criteria weighting, type percentages for each criterion. You must select the Show Criteria Weight check box for the Balance Weights function to appear. The total weight for all criteria must equal 100%. No row may have a 0% weight. At least one Level of Achievement must have a value of 100%. Once we’ve created our rubric we’ll want to connect it to an assignment. Associated rubrics are visible in the grading and rubrics sections for, Assignments Essay, Short Answer, and File Response test questions Wikis, Journals and Blogs as well as Discussion board forums and threads. To associate a rubric during the editing or creation process, point to Add Rubric to access the drop-down list and choose one of the options: Select Rubric associates a rubric that you created in the Rubrics area of Course Tools. Create New Rubric opens a pop-up window to allow immediate creation of a new associated rubric. Create From Existing uses a previously created rubric as a template to create a new associated rubric. When associating a points-based rubric, the option to use the rubric's points value as the Points Possible are available after clicking Submit on the rubric creation or selection page. You can also associate a rubric in the Grade Center by accessing a column's contextual menu and click Edit Column Information. Lastly, lets go over the steps to grade using rubrics: Access the gradable item in the Grade Center, or on the Needs Grading page. Click View Rubric to review or begin grading with the associated rubric. In Grid View, click a cell to apply that point value to the grade. If a rubric with point ranges is used, select the appropriate value from the drop-down list. To change the selection, click another cell in the same row. Optionally, type Feedback to the student in the text box that appears when a cell is selected. Optionally, click List View to switch displays and select an option for each criterion to apply that point value to the grade. Optionally, select the check boxes to Show Descriptions for criteria and to Show Feedback text boxes. A running Raw Total score appears as you make point selections. Optionally, type a score in the Change the number of points box to override the selected score, and type overall Feedback to the student using the full features of the content editor. When grading is complete, click Exit to leave the rubric without saving your selections, or click Save to save the score and feedback and return to the attempt.

It’s very possible that your course will include a test or quiz that is delivered using Blackboard. How a test is delivered can be customized based on how high the stakes are and the needs of the students in your course. In this video, I’ll show you how to create a basic low stakes quiz and walk you through how to edit the test delivery options. Remember, any major changes to course content need to be approved by your course contact. Also, make sure you reach out to your schools’ designated AT if you have any questions on editing test options. First let me show you how to create a basic test or quiz. When you create a test, you must first create all of the questions and decide how many points they will be worth. Once you’ve built the test, you then must deploy it to a specific content area: On the Control Panel, expand the Course Tools section and click Tests, Surveys, and Pools. On the Tests, Surveys, and Pools page, click Tests. All of the tests and quizzes that have already been created are listed here. The first column shows the name of the test. The second column tells you if it has been deployed and in what content area the test can be accessed. On the Tests page, click Build Test on the action bar. On the Test Information page, type a name. Optionally, provide a description and instructions. When you’re done, click Submit. On the Test Canvas, point to Create Question on the action bar and select a question type. On the Create/Edit page, provide the necessary information to create a question. To add another question of the same type click Submit and Create Another. To add a question of a different type, click Submit. You can add new questions exactly where you want them on the Test Canvas. Click the plus sign before or after another question and choose a question type. On the Test Canvas, you can change a question's point value by clicking a question's current point value here. In the Update Points pop-up box, edit the points. Note that if you’re adding an extra credit question, you would check the designated box. Then click Submit. To update the points for all of the questions or certain types of questions, click select all or choose a type from the drop down menu. Type the amount of points and click Update. By default, when you create new questions with the Create Question drop-down list, they are added to the end of the test or survey. On the Test or Survey Canvas, reorder questions by pointing to a question to show the double-tipped arrow and then dragging it to its new location. Continue adding questions and when you’re done, scroll down and click OK. The test is added to the list on the Tests page and is ready to deploy in a content area. To edit a test on the test page, move your mouse over a test, click the dropdown menu, and select Edit. Now that we’ve created our basic test, we need to deploy it. We’ll put our test in week 7 of the course so we’ll navigate to that content area and from the action bar, select Test from the Assessments menu. Note that you can click create test to create a brand new test, or select from the list of existing tests that have not yet been deployed. We’ll select the test we just created and click submit. We then land on the test options page. The test name and description automatically populate if you added them when you created the test. Otherwise type them into the rich text editors now. Check the boxes below if you want to show the description and instructions before a student begins the test. There are lots of different delivery options for tests so I’m just going to go over the main ones. Again, if you have questions on any of these, reach out to your AT and they’ll be happy to help. First, to make this test available choose yes. If this is a practice test you can check the Multiple Attempts box and either allow unlimited attempts or specify a specific amount. By checking the force completion box, the student must complete the test in one sitting and will not have the option to save their work and return to it later. To set a specific time limit, check this box and specify how many minutes the student has to complete the test. Occasionally you may have a student who needs ADA accommodations and may need extra time to complete a test. Under the Test Availability Exceptions section, click Add User or Group. Select the student who requires accommodation and click submit. Their name will appear and you can now customize the number of attempts, the timer and when the test is available for that individual student. Note that you must have specified a set time above in order to make an exception here. Next, Add a due date. In the SHOW TEST RESULTS AND FEEDBACK TO STUDENTS section you can customize how you show test results and feedback to students. For example, Showing the answers after the test is due or available helps deter cheating. Finally I can decide if I want to deliver all the questions at once or one at a time, and whether those questions should be randomized for each user. When you’re done, click submit. Your test appears at the bottom of the content area. If you need to access these test options again, or make changes to the options for a different test, from the content area, select the drop down menu next to the name and select edit test options.

In the last video, we discussed all the major ways that you can customize a test in Blackboard. In this video, we’ll go over how to grade and provide feedback for students after they complete a test. By and large, most tests that you’ll encounter in your course will automatically be graded for you. Any test that solely consists of questions where the correct answer is already given at the time the test was created (such as multiple choice or true/false questions) will be automatically graded once the students submit the test. However, if the test has essay or short answer questions, the test will appear as needs grading and you, the instructor, must evaluate and provide a score for those questions. Tests that you need to grade are accessed from the Needs Grading page or from the Grade Center. We’ll go to the full grade center. To grade a single test, locate the cell for a student’s test containing an exclamation mark, indicating needs grading. Access the cell's contextual menu and click Attempt. To grade all attempts for a particular test access the test column's contextual menu and click Grade Attempts. The Grade Test page appears. On this page you can navigate among users and attempts, view rubrics, grade anonymously, and view information about a test. Expand the Test Information link to view the following information: The status of the test—Needs Grading, In Progress, or Completed. The score awarded for the test. If the test needs grading, this number is blank. If you chose the Set Timer option, the time a student spent taking the test is recorded and appears here. Started Date shows the date the student began. Submitted Date shows the date the student submitted the test for grading. Any instructions associated with the test also displayed here. Clicking Clear Attempt clears the current test attempt. Use this when you want to give a student another chance to start over on a test. For example, if a student started a test that forced completion or a technical issue prevented them from finishing, you could allow them to retake the test. The Submit Attempt button overrides an In Progress test attempt and submits it for grading. If a test is listed as in progress, either you or the student taking it must submit the test for it to be graded. On the Grade Test page, type a score for each question here. You can overwrite scores for questions graded automatically. If you associated a rubric with Essay, Short Answer, or File Response questions, click View Rubric to grade the question using the rubric. To learn more, see our Rubrics video earlier in this series. Optionally, add Response Feedback specific to the individual question. The Response Feedback box only appears for certain question types, such as Essays. At the bottom, type comments in the Feedback box. This feedback is for the whole test and is visible to students in My Grades. Type comments to yourself in the Grading Notes box. This text is not seen by students. Click Save and Exit to return to the Full Grade Center, the Needs Grading page, or the Grade Details page, depending on where grading began. Or, Click Save and Next to display the next user, when available. Use the arrows on the action bar to display the previous or next user, when available.

The Performance Dashboard provides you with a view into user activity in your course. All users enrolled in your course are listed, including instructors, students, teaching assistants, graders, observers, and guests, with pertinent information about each user’s progress and activity. On the Control Panel, expand the Evaluation section and click Performance Dashboard. The Performance Dashboard page appears and displays a summary of the information for your course: The first few columns show the user's last name, first name and the username they use to log in to Blackboard. Then the Role column displays a user's defined role within your course. Examples of roles include instructor, student, grader, teaching assistant, guest, and observer. Last Course Access is the date and time when a user last accessed your course. And Days Since Last Course Access tells you the number of days that has elapsed since the last time a user accessed your course. Review Status and Adaptive Release are used in courses where content is released one item at a time based on certain completion criteria. If you have not established any adaptive release rules in your course, then you can just disregard these columns. For more information on Adaptive Release, reach out to your school’s designated AT. In the Discussion Board column, you’ll find the number of forums the student has participated in. Clicking the number in this column opens a Discussion Board page listing all of the forums the selected user has participated in., This information also includes the Date of Last Post, their average post length, their average post position and their grade if applicable. Click the Performance Dashboard link to go back. The Customize Retention Center is covered in our Retention Center video later in this series. And finally, View Grades: This column provides a direct link to the Full Grade Center.

Blackboard, like any technology, is going to have its issues from time to time. The CII at Brandman works around the clock to limit these issues but occasionally something will happen in your course and you need to know where to go for help. Who to contact depends on the nature of the issue: If you have questions about the content in your course, you need to reach out to your course contact or course custodian. For example, if you want to make changes to assignments, discussion boards and other forms of assessment, you want to get permission from the course contact first. This information is typically in the Instructor Resources folder in course information. If not, contact your dean’s office to find out. If you are experiencing technical issues with your Blackboard course shell or have questions about the various course tools, you can always reach out to your schools designated Academic Technology Support Specialist, or AT for short. A list of email addresses is available on our website: Go to brandman.edu/cii/ and click on faculty. The CII website also offers a ton of other resources to help you along the way. You can click here to view the schedule and register for one of our live online trainings. These trainings are offered at convenient times and cover multiple topics to help you succeed as an instructor. Our video resources are available by clicking on the Blackboard logo on the website or you can search for a topic in the faculty repository, which is located on your Blackboard Dashboard. For general questions about what the CII has to offer or to request a video tutorial on a specific subject, email us at [email protected] Thanks for watching.