To: Faculty users of Blackboard
Subject: 2009 Spring Semester - Blackboard Reminders
If you have any questions concerning any of the items in this document or questions
at any time about Blackboard (Bb), please submit an on-line help desk ticket at
http://www.at.vcu.edu/helpdesk/ or email blackboard@vcu.edu or call 828-2227. If
the Help Desk staff can not answer your questions they will forward your questions to
a member of the Technology Services Learning Systems staff. A portion of the
Learning Systems staff is dedicated to monitoring Blackboard help tickets.
Items covered in this document:
Reminders (might be new information if you are first time user):
 Making 2009 Spring courses available to students
 Combining course rosters for Multiple sections or Cross-listed courses
 Download Gradebook from Prior Semester course(s) for your Personal Copy or
Upload Grades
 2008 Fall courses will be set to Unavailable status the week of January 12
 Bb Policies posted on-online
 Bb 7.3 Documentation (new version after May 16, 2008 upgrade)
 Bb courses for 2005 Summer, 2005 Fall & 2006 Spring were archived during
2008 Summer
 Bb JumpStart Service started August 1, 2008
 Respondus version upgraded and license renewed
 Wimba Voice tools and Classroom Maintenance Schedule
 Blackboard Maintenance Schedule 
 Training Opportunities and Help Links
Making your 2009 Spring course(s) available to students
Remember to make your Spring 2009 course(s) "Available" in the Blackboard
system when you are ready for your students to see the course. All courses are set
to "Unavailable" when you first create them. Courses that are "Unavailable" are
not visible to the students enrolled in the course. To set your course to be
available to students, please do the following:
1. From the Control Panel of the Course, choose Settings.
2. From Settings, choose Course Availability.
3. Set the course to be Available and Submit.
Combining course rosters for Multiple sections or Cross-listed courses
If you are teaching multiple sections of a course or a course is cross-listed and
you would like to have the enrollments for all of the sections combined into a
single Blackboard course, please submit an on-line help desk ticket at
http://www.at.vcu.edu/helpdesk/ or email blackboard@vcu.edu. In the email,
please specify the name of the course that you have created in Blackboard and the
specific course sections that you would like to have directed into the Bb course.
For example: "Please combine sections 001, 002, 003 and 004 of PSYC-101 into
the Blackboard course PSYC-101-001-2009Spring." Or “Please Combine
WMNS-101-001-2009Spring into the Blackboard course PSYC-101-0012009Spring”
It usually takes a business day for the roster to update after you have made your
request for combined sections or cross-listing, and after you have created the
course in Blackboard.
Download Gradebook from Prior Semester course(s) for your Personal Copy or
Upload Grades
To save your own personal copy of the Bb gradebook (we highly recommend you
keep a copy), perform the following steps:
1. From the Control Panel of the Course, click on Gradebook
2. Click on Download Grades
3. Select Delimiter Type (Comma or Tab, if you use Microsoft Excel either
will be OK).
4. Click on Submit
5. Click on Download
6. Click on Save (save to your desktop computer)
This file can be opened in Excel.
You can download your gradebook anytime during the semester, open it in Excel,
make changes to an existing column or add a column. Then you can upload it
back into Blackboard.
To upload grades:
1. From the Control Panel of the Course, Click on Gradebook
2. Click on Upload Grades
3. Follow the instructions on the screen
2008 Fall courses will be set to Unavailable status the week of January 12
We will set all Bb Fall 2008 courses to an "Unavailable" status the week of
January 12, 2009. This is done so that the Fall 2008 courses will no longer be
available to students. The courses will continue to be accessible to instructors.
Please note this process sets the course to unavailable and you as the instructor on
the course can make it available again if needed (Control Panel – Settings). If you
wish to ensure that your Fall 2008 course remains available to students, you may
send an email to pasmith2@vcu.edu prior to January 12 with the course id (e.g.
PSYC-101-001-2008Fall). This will ensure that the availability of your course is
not modified.
Bb Policies posted on-line
The Blackboard policies have now been posted to the FAQs.
http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/index.php?action=show&cat=5.
Check them out at
Bb 7.3 Documentation (new version after May 16, 2008 upgrade)
Blackboard was upgraded on May 16, 2008. For documentation on what is new
or changed; go to the Blackboard Content System tab, click on Institution
Content, and click on Bb Tip Sheets. The items labeled with 7.3 have information
related to updated/enhanced features.
Bb courses for 2005 Summer, 2005 Fall & 2006 Spring were archived during the
2008 Summer
The Bb archive policy is to have two years of courses on the production system
(2006 Summer to 2008 Spring) and three years archived. The archive process
takes place during the summer. If at any time you need an archived course
restored, send a request to the Technology Services Help Desk at
http://www.ts.vcu.edu/helpdesk or blackboard@vcu.edu or 828-2227 and please
include the course id and semester you taught the course.
Bb JumpStart Service started August 1, 2008
The Blackboard JumpStart Program is for any faculty/instructors that have never
used Blackboard. The Learning Systems staff in Technology Services will create
the ‘basic’ Blackboard course site and will give the instructor instructions on how
to keep it up to date. The initial Bb course site will include a syllabus and, if
requested, the faculty member’s office hours and contact information.
For more information about the service go to:
http://faq.vcu.edu/ts/index.php?action=artikel&cat=13&id=175&artlang=en
Respondus Version Upgraded and License Renewed
Respondus has been upgraded to version 3.5.4e and the annual license has been renewed.
To ensure that you have the latest version select “Help” (while in Respondus) from the
menu bar at the top of the screen. Then select “Check for updates”. To verify that your
installation of Respondus is configured to automatically update, select “File”,
“Preferences” and make sure the box beside “Automatically check for program updates”
is checked.
Wimba Voice Tools and Classroom Maintenance Schedule
Wimba Voice tools and Wimba Classroom are hosted by Wimba and so their
maintenance scheduled is determined by the license agreement. As outlined in
Wimba’s ASP license agreement, Wimba adheres to a maintenance window of
Sunday from 1 a.m. ET to 6 a.m. ET.
Blackboard Maintenance Schedule
This is a reminder that the Bb system will be taken down the second and fourth
Friday of each month from 4pm to midnight to perform maintenance. Go to this
link to see actual dates: http://www.vcu.edu/ls/BbSchedMaint/Index.htm. Please
remind your students of these dates.
Training Opportunities and Help Links
Center for Teaching Excellence
Learn about sound pedagogical methods and other resources
http://www.vcu.edu/cte/
Blackboard Training
http://go.vcu.edu/bbtraining
Blackboard FAQ
http://go.vcu.edu/bbfaq
Technology Help Desk page
http://go.vcu.edu/helpdesk
Blackboard’s Support for Faculty, Instructors and Designers
(NOTE: this is not a VCU site. We run the Blackboard Academic Suite version
7.3)
http://behind.blackboard.com/s/faculty/
Regards,
Blackboard Team
blackboard@vcu.edu