- Go to the Groups tab
- Click Create New Group.
- Enter the name and a description of the group
- Select Member, or Select Manager to invite people
- Search for the relevant names in the directory
- Repeat the two steps above until invites complete and Submit
Controlling display of course listings in “My Courses”
Since 2012 previous year’s versions of SITS unit courses have been automatically retained on Blackboard, so staff and students can have easy access to these where appropriate.
Following the annual course roll-over at the start of August, you will be able to see previous as well as current versions of unit courses, clearly identified by a year suffix in the course ID and name, eg:
Course ID Course name
BIOL11000 Biology 1A Diversity of Life 11_12
BIOL11000_2012_13 Biology 1A: Diversity of Life 12_13
BIOL11000_2013 Biology 1A: Diversity of Life 2013
BIOL11000_2014 Biology 1A: Diversity of Life 2014
BIOL11000_2015 Biology 1A: Diversity of Life 2015
This year all 2014 courses will by default remain available to students – in previous years staff could make the courses available to students if they wished.
Staff can easily make multiple courses unavailable to students, if required, using the Qwickly tool on their Blackboard home page.
Staff and students can choose to group each year’s courses under separate headings in the “My Courses” box on your Blackboard Home tab. To do this, please follow the instructions below:
- Move your mouse to the top right of the My Courses box on your Blackboard home page and click on the small cog wheel icon.
- On the page that opens, under “1. Terms”, tick “Group by Term”
- Note that you can also choose which courses and terms you want displayed, and whether you want to see course names, course IDs, or both.
- When you have finished click “Submit”
- Here is a 25-second video on how to use group courses using terms.
I don’t appear to be enrolled on the correct Blackboard course. What should I do?
- If you are not enrolled on a Blackboard course for a unit you are studying, please first check that you are registered for the unit (via MyBristol – Course info tab – unit registration, or at https://www.bris.ac.uk/studentinfo/), and allow 24 hours after unit registration is complete.
- In Blackboard a course space is created for all units. However, not all academics use Blackboard to support their teaching. So please check with your lecturer to ensure that they are using Blackboard and that they have made the course available.
- If you have checked that you are enrolled on the unit, and your lecturer has confirmed they are using Blackboard and has made the course available, but you still cannot see the course in Blackboard, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk
What does course “not currently available” mean and how can I make a course available?
As an Instructor, if under “My courses” on your Blackboard home page you see “not currently available” or “unavailable” after the course, this means the course is unavailable to students. Instructors can still access and edit the course.
Once your course is ready for students to use, ensure that it is made available as follows:
- Click on the course
- Under Control Panel click on Customisation
- Click on Properties
- In section 3 Set availability select Yes
- Click Submit
Your course is now available to students.
Or use the Qwickly tool on your home page
Click Course Availability and turn the On/Off button next to the course to the required state.
Java plug in certificate pop up box.
If you use a tool in Blackboard that uses a Java plug-in (e.g. Multiple file upload in the content system) you may receive a pop up box asking you to confirm the securitycertificate. Please tick the box that says always trust content from this supplier and click run.
The TEL team are working with our Technical support colleagues to apply a fix to Blackboard to stop this occurring. Once this has been applied and tested we will update this blog.
How can I add a test student to my course?
Instructors can view courses as a student by simply turning editing off or using Student Preview. However, in order to thoroughly test an activity, such as online submission, it is necessary to use a test student account. Instructors can create a test student as follows:
- In the Control panel of your course click on Course tools
- Click on Add test student
- The student username will be your username_s
- Enter a password, and confirm this.
- Click Create Test Student
You will need to use the Guest login option when logging in as this student.
Please note: You must keep these details confidential in line with IT Services’s Code of Conduct for the use of computing facilities. You are responsible for any Blackboard use undertaken using this username and password. All test student accounts will be deleted at the end of each academic year.
Ensuring Bibilographic material is excluded in submissions to Turnitin
To ensure that Bibliographic material is excluded when this option is selected in Turnitin the students will need to add one of the following headings above their references:
- Bibliography
- References
- Referenced Works
This heading must be by itself on a new line in the document. The heading must not be followed by an item of punctuation, for example ‘Bibliography:-‘ will stop Turnitin from being able to recognise the heading correctly and therefore the matches in the reference materials will be included in the originality report score.
Blackboard Mobile Learn is here
What is Blackboard Mobile Learn?
Blackboard Mobile Learn allows staff and students access to their teaching and Learning materials on Blackboard whenever and wherever they are through their mobile device. Blackboard Mobile is available in native mobile applications for most popular mobile platforms including including Android™, iPhone®, iPod touch®, iPad® and BlackBerry®
What does it do?
Blackboard Mobile Learn is an extension of the University’s existing Virtual Learning Environment, Blackboard. By downloading the application much of the core content on your units will be available to you on your mobile device. Students and staff are able to access documents, use communication tools including discussion boards and announcements (staff), upload media to discussion boards and blogs and view grades and feedback.
Does it make everything mobile?
Blackboard Mobile Learn makes a large number of the tools in Blackboard available to mobile users. There are some differences in access to certain tools depending on the device you have. The link below details the features available to each device.
Applications and Features summary
Where do I get it?
Click on the link below and chose your device from the images.
Student and Staff download here
How do I access University of Bristol Blackboard?
Search for the University of Bristol and tap on the name displayed. When prompted enter your usual Blackboard ID and password.
What do I need to do to access my courses?
Nothing – the plug-in we have added to Blackboard manages the way you see the information on your mobile device across all of your units.
What does it cost?
Blackboard Mobile Learn is available as a free download. Once you have downloaded the application and are accessing Blackboard data costs will be applicable in line with the data package on your device.
Instructors – tracking student activity
There are some known issues with the accuracy of Blackboard statistics from course and item tracking tools. Information about this is available on our blog.
There are 2 other options for tracking student access to files which you may find useful.
1. The first option allows students themselves to indicate that they have accessed an item, e.g. a file
The Performance Dashboard (in the Control Panel under Evaluation) provides an overview of user activity. This can be used in conjunction with the Review Status function to track student access to items, e.g. files (Review status and the Performance Dashboard can also be used to track other activity).
To set this up, firstly switch on review status for the item you wish to track, as follows:
- find the item you wish to track
- click on the double drop down menu to the right of the item name
- click on Set review status, then Enable, and Submit
If you then turn edit mode off it shows a tick box next to an item. Students can tick it to indicate that they have opened/read a document. This has the potential advantage that it requires a conscious action on the part of the student. If you want to encourage students to engage with an item, then asking them to make a judgement that they have read and understood it might be more meaningful than a report which simply says that they have clicked on it.
Reporting on this is either through the Performance Dashboard, or by clicking on User progress in the dropdown menu next to the item.
2. The second option automatically tracks user access to files through the Blackboard Content system.
You can switch this on as follows:
- Click on Control panel, then Content
- Click on the relevant content area e.g. the course ID
- Find the file
- Click on the dropdown options menu (double dropdown menu to the right of the filename)
- Click on Edit
- Under options tick Enable tracking then click Submit
To see tracking reports follow the instructions 1 – 4 above but then choose 360 degree view and scroll down to Tracking data.
Sign Up List Building Block – Important information
The Sign Up List tool in Blackboard is a building block provided by a third party. Since well before beginning our upgrade process in the summer to Blackboard 9.1 we have been expecting the release of the new building block – as the developer institution also upgraded to Blackboard 9.1 over the summer. We have left the Sign Up tool as available in Blackboard as we did not want to stop access to any information contained in current courses.
While the current version of the sign up list is still available for use there are some important considerations as it is not fully functioning. If you do wish to use this please read the notes below prior to adding to your course.
What works –
- Adding a sign up list to content area
- Students adding themselves to lists
- Students removing themselves from lists when the list is not full
- Notification that the list is full
- Adding students to reserve list
- Export to excel (does not show reserve list)
- Export to CSV file (does show reserve list)
What does not work –
- Instructors manually adding users
- Instructors manually removing users
- Students removing themselves when list is full
- Moving students from reserve list to main list
- Printing directly from Blackboard
We will post further information as soon as the updated tool becomes available from the the third party, in the mean time another option is to use the sign up functionality in the Groups tool. This has the advantage of linking directly to the Group tools such as email. If you would like some guidance on using this please contact bb-help@bristol.ac.uk.
UPDATE 07/11/2011 – We have now received the alpha version of the building block for 9.1 and this is being added to our test environment so we can fully test functionality.