Blackboard CE8 And The "Save All Answers" Button

Sometimes, when you are taking a quiz in Blackboard CE8, if you do not save each answer as you finish it, then attempt to use the "Save All Answers" button, you can lose all of your answers and be forced to re-take the test.

This happens because the CE8 system "times out". It isn't seeing any "activity". Typing in a text box is not considered "activity" and is basically invisible to CE8.

Unfortunately, there is no way to retrieve those lost answers.

The reason why this happens is because you are (probably) using Internet Explorer, and you have never "tuned up" IE so that it works correctly with Blackboard CE8. IE and Bb CE8 do not play well together unless you "tune up" your browser.

However, the BEST way to cure this problem is to switch to the latest version of Mozilla Firefox (http://mozilla.com) and use it instead of IE for when you are in Blackboard.

So, you can approach this on two fronts:

1. Either tune up IE, or switch to Firefox (see step-by-step procedure below.) This MUST be done. Doing nothing is not an option, otherwise you will continue to experience this strange behavior.
2. Ask your Instructor to edit each quiz's Properties so that in the "Question Delivery" section of the properties the "Deliver questions one at a time and allow questions to be revisited" option is check-marked instead of the default "Deliver questions all at once" option. Forcing each question to be displayed alone should keep this from happening, even in IE web browsers that have not been tuned up properly.

Also, you need to SAVE every question every time, right away. Do not wait until the end to save. Save immediately after choosing the answer. The sequence should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS be: Choose answer > click Save button. Don't be lazy about this. The "Save All Answers" button is a great idea, but it depends very heavily on the individual user's browser settings - which we cannot control.