Bb Assignments & Assessments Workshop

Hi Folks,

I will be in Mesa teaching a Blackboard Workshop on Assignments & Assessments. It'll be held at 12:00 noon MST (2:00 pm CST) and again at 3:00 pm MST (5:00 pm CST). It will be in Saguaro B at the Mesa ATSU campus.

Elluminate Link

Bring your laptop and follow along with the hands-on portion! See you there! :)

The Blackboard On-Demand Learning Center

There is a wealth of information available to you - as new Bb9.1 users - in the Blackboard On-Demand Learning Center. Videos, documents, tutorials, Powerpoint presentations, and walk-throughs can all be found there at the following address:

* http://ondemand.blackboard.com

I would strongly suggest that you take advantage of this great resource!

How To Backup Your Test Course Once You've Built It

1. Enter into your Course.
2. Click the "Packages and Utilities" menu in the "Course Management" Control Panel to expand it.
3. Once it expands, click the "Export/Archive Course" option.
4. Click the "Export" button.
5. Disregard the "Course Files" area. The export package size is unlimited at this time.
6. Select the Course Materials you wish to export. Because you will not have any Students in your test Course, you should only select non-grade and Student-related items like Content Areas, Calendar, Tests, etc. (However, there is no penalty for selecting Student or grade-related items, so don't worry too much about it.)
7. Click the "Submit" button.
8. You should see a message that says, "Success: This action has been queued. An email will be sent when the process is complete."
9. Wait a few minutes, then click the "Export/Archive Course" link again to refresh the screen. Your package should now be listed. It will have a long filename, something like: "ExportFile_brent001_20110104124612.zip".
10. Click the filename to download it and Save it to your own hard drive for safekeeping. *This is your own responsibility*. After we move to a production environment, this is the file that you will IMPORT to re-create the work you've done on your Test Course in your real, live Production Course.

PLEASE NOTE: The "Archive" option should only be used on real, live Courses, with real, live Students in them.

How To Create A Test Course

Once you log in, you will need to create a test Course for your own use. To this end, and for your convenience, we have added an easy-to-use, "follow the bouncing ball" type of "Course Creation Wizard" to the front page of Blackboard 9.1. Simply click the "Launch the Course Creation Wizard." link located within the "Course Creation Wizard" Module on the front page, and the CCW will pop-up in a new window and step you through the process. Please read the wizard carefully.

PLEASE NOTE: The act of using the Course Creation Wizard will automatically enroll YOU as the "Course Instructor", and the Course will now show under "Courses You Are Teaching" in the "My Courses" module on your Bb9.1 front page. As the Course Instructor for your new Course, you will have both Instructor and Designer rights to the Course.

The REQUIRED fields to create a new Course are "Course Name" and "Course ID". These are 100% ARBITRARY fields. In other words, you may name the Course anything you wish, and you may give the Course any course ID you wish. At this point we do not recommend that you attempt to use a real Course ID from ATSU's Course Catalog. Please use a personal name and ID. Something along the lines of:

* Course Name:  Brent's Test Course 001
* Course ID: brent001

This way your Course will be immediately recognizable to you, and to the Bb9.1 Administrators.

How To Enroll Students In Your Bb9.1 Test Course

1. Log in to Bb9.1, then in to your test course. Make sure that the "Edit" switch is switched to "ON".
2. Scroll down to the Control Panel on the left and click "Users & Groups > Users".
3. In the right-hand pane, hover your mouse above the "Enroll Users" button, then choose "Find Users To Enroll" from the drop-down list.
4. Type-in the user's ATSU username. The ATSU username is the name before the "@atsu.edu" in the user's ATSU email address. For example, my ATSU username is "brasmussen". Joe Student's is "jstudent". (You may also use the "Browse" button to pop-up a query window where you may search for a user to add to your course.)
5. In the "Role" drop-down box, choose "Student".
6. In the "Enrollment Availability" selector, choose "Yes".
7. Click the "Submit" button.
8. Repeat for each user you wish to enroll.

Can I Use Respondus On My Mac?

Here is an answer to a question I received today about using Respondus with a Macintosh computer:

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Unfortunately, dedicated Macintosh version of Respondus is not available. It is only available for Windows-based operating systems.

There is a work-around that we cannot recommend for all faculty and staff, but, if you are a Macintosh user and use either Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, or some virtual Windows software, you should be able to install and use Respondus on your Mac within that virtual Windows environment.
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So, basically, Respondus is a Windows application only - but you can install and run it within a virtual Windows box on your Mac.

Sorry, but no guarantees! :)

Welcome to The Bbug Blog!

Hi Folks,

Thanks for stopping by!

This blog will be another way to ask questions and discuss ATSU's new Blackboard Learn 9.1 system. I will answer your questions in a work Ticket, or in an email reply, like normal, but I will also cross-post those answers here so that more people can see them and comment on them.

I am going to kick-off this blog by posting a few recent Ticket solutions and step-by-step procedures that apply to Bb9.1. In the future, if you have any questions about Bb9.1 you would like answered here, please place a Ticket with the ATSU Helpdesk, or send my an email.

Thanks again for reading, and I hope we'll have a great time with this!

-Brent