| Faculty FAQs
Roster/Enrolling
Q. Why do I still see previous semester's students on my roster? They're all
mixed in with this semester's roster
If you currently see previous semester's students mixed with this semester's students, you have 2 options.....
1. Instructors may manually delete last years students by accessing Control Panel > Remove Users From Course. Please remember that once you remove a user all their records and course interaction will be deleted.
2. If you have a large amount of students mixed from semesters, please contact a Blackboard Admin - classes@emory.edu
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Q. I am trying to add a member of the University community using Enroll Users. But he/she is not showing up when I search.
Check to make sure that this person is not already enrolled in your course via Control Panel > List/Modify Users > click List All TWICE.
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Q. Do I need to request enrollment for students to appear in my roster?
Yes, please access our course request form. Please remove your students from the previous semester. For precautionary reasons users are recommended to download the gradebook and archive their site.
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Q. I requested automatic student enrollment for my course site. How do I check it?
To check your roster, access your course site > Control Panel > List/Modify Users > List All.
If students are not enrolled and you completed the online request form, send an email to classes@emory.edu.
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Q. How do I add other instructors to my course site? What about guests?
You may enroll other Emory instructors via Control Panel > Enroll Users. If they are affiliated with Emory University, then they should already have a Blackboard account. If they are Emory guests, contact the Blackboard administrators and they'll create the account. They will need the following info:
- First and last name
- Email address
- Name of the Blackboard course to enroll the person in
Click here for more information about guest accounts.
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Personal Information and Email
Q. How do I check my email address?
To check your personal information (including your first name and/or last name), access the main My Emory tab within Blackboard and click on Personal Information under the Tools area. Next, click Edit Personal Information.
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Q. Why can't I change my email address?
Emory Users: Now that Blackboard is tied into the other ITD university resources, if you would like to CHANGE your email address you will need to access PEACH (Preferred Email Address Change Handler): https://www.app.emory.edu/peach/
Guests (non-Emory): To change your preferred email address, send an email to the Blackboard administrators: classes@emory.edu
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Q. My students don't receive any of the email messages that I send from within Blackboard. What is wrong?
Make sure the students check their email addresses within Blackboard via the My Emory tab, Tools area, Personal Information. If they have checked and that doesn't appear to be the problem, please have them send an email to classes@emory.edu so we may troubleshoot it further. If the email address is incorrect, then students must use the university's PEACH system to change it.
NOTE: If they are LearnLink users, the problem may be related to their email settings. LearnLink considers mail from Blackboard as junk mail because it's being sent to a group with no students' names listed. Users must change how LearnLink handles junk mail via Edit > Preferences > Messenging > Junk Mail Handling > Set to ACCEPT (rather than Delete Silently).
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Text Editor
Q. I copied and pasted text from Microsoft Word into Blackboard's text editor. When I click submit to view it all of my quotation marks have turned into UPSIDE DOWN question marks (ex. ¿Am I dreaming?¿) . What's wrong?
TIP: Users may copy and paste text from Microsoft Word into Notepad(PC) or Text Editor(MAC). This will rid the text of any extracted code or special characters before pasting into Blackboard. All formatting will be lost in this process.
In Word, the default setting for quotation marks and apostrophes is something called "Smart Quotes." This setting replaces "regular" quotes with the curly quotes. When you paste text into Bb, the text editor converts it automatically to HTML to be viewed on the Web.
Since Blackboard's text editor doesn't know what to do with "smart quotes, it replaces each "character" with a question mark. There is also a setting that converts two hyphens (--) into a long dash. If you do a lot of copy/pasting from Word you can turn off the "smart quotes" feature:
- In Word, go to the TOOLS menu --> AUTOCORRECT.
- Click the Format as you Type tab.
- The first box is "Straight Quotes" with "Smart Quotes." Uncheck the box.
- OPTIONAL: Uncheck the hyphen/dash box.
For existing text, you'll have to use FIND and REPLACE (from the Edit Menu) to change the "smart quotes" to "straight quotes" for the changes to take effect.
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Q. I can't use the cut, copy, and paste functions
in the Visual Text Box Editor when using Mozilla Firefox
Firefox users, on all operating systems, must perform an extra step to enable the cut, copy, and paste functions. This is a function of the Firefox browser, and not Blackboard applications. The first time an
attempt is made to cut, copy, or paste text in the Visual Text Box Editor, a message from Firefox will appear explaining that the action is not allowed. A link is provided for information on how to enable the cut, copy,
and paste functions by editing a Firefox configuration file. The link currently points to http://www.mozilla.org/editor/midasdemo/securityprefs.html.
Please check with Firefox for the most up-to-date information on using rich-text tools for cut, copy, and paste. Macintosh users may find that this does not fully resolve the problem, particularly because Firefox does not permit pasting text from Microsoft Office files on Mac. To accomplish this task, paste the text into a basic text editor, such as TextEdit or Notepad and then paste the text into the Visual Text Box Editor.
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Q. The new text box/WYSIWYG editor (available to Windows/IE users) will not allow me to MODIFY documents. I keep getting some kind of Microsoft error. It's also causing me not to be able to paste a hyperlink properly.
We've found that turning it off completely solves the problem: My Emory tab, Tools Area, Personal Information.
Note: We have reported these problems to Blackboard Inc., with hopes of a patch for this problem. There are reports that the problem is actually related to Microsoft's Service Pack Release
2. Although users can disable the editor, we are investigating the pros and cons of having it available globally within Emory's Blackboard system.
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Assessments/Surveys
Q. Students are attempting to take my online test. Each time they click TAKE ASSESSMENT nothing happens - no test appears.
Pop-up blocker software is bundled with many programs including Windows XP Service Pack 2, Google Toolbar, Yahoo Toolbar, and Norton Internet Security. Students should disable their pop-blockers when using Blackboard for taking tests or using the Virtual Classroom. Students can also instruct the pop-up blocker to “Always allow pop-ups from this site.”
Pop-up blockers are very likely to cause test problems. Symptoms include not being able to click on the exam link or encountering problems when an exam is submitted.
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Q. How do I make an assessment available again after time has expired?
Access the Control Panel; click the content area (ex. Course Documents, Assignments) where the assessment resides; click the Modify button; change the option to Yes for Do you want to make the content visible -- or -- change the Dates of Availability.
Do not use the Assessment Manager to change the availability.
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Q. How do I make an assessment/survey available for a particular group?
Once you have created the test/survey, select the content area where the test/survey will reside. Next click "Manage"and then the Adaptive Release link and specify the groups that are allowed to see the survey (in part 2 "Membership"). Do not forget to make the test/survey available for viewing.
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Q. Students just completed a SURVEY . I see the results, but no students' names are associated with them. I can't see who said what!
Unfortunately, there is no way to fix this. Survey results are meant to be anonymous. Surveys should be administered for polling and/or evaluation purposes. Surveys differ from Tests in the following ways:
- Questions on Surveys cannot be assigned points.
- Surveys cannot include random blocks of questions.
- Instructors cannot give students feedback.
- Surveys cannot be graded.
- Survey questions cannot be categorized.
- Questions may be imported into a Survey, but cannot include correct and incorrect answers.
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Access/Availability
Q. When I log in, I don't see my class site on Blackboard.
Did you request a course site using the Blackboard request form? If so, send an email to the Blackboard administrators at classes@emory.edu. Q. I can access my site, but my students are NOT enrolled yet. Why not?
First, make sure you're checking your roster using Control Panel > List/Modify Users.
- If they're not listed, did you request enrollment this semester using the Blackboard request form? If so, send an email to the Blackboard administrators at classes@emory.edu so they can troubleshoot.
- If they are listed, have you made the site AVAILABLE to the students via Control Panel > Settings. If this is not the problem, send an email to the Blackboard administrators at classes@emory.edu.
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Q. Why do I see UNAVAILABLE beside my course name when I log in?
Unavailable means your course is not accessible by your enrolled students. In fact, they can't even see the site when they log in.
To make it available to them, access Control Panel > Settings > Course Availability. The Blackboard administrators do not control this option since they do not know when a course is developed and ready for students to access the materials.
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Q. I want to allow guest access. But my guests say they can't view my content!
By default, Guest Access is disabled upon creation of your course site. Therefore, you must enable Guest Access via
Control Panel > Settings. Next, select the course areas you would like guest to view via Control Panel > Manage Tools.
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General
Q .How do I change the name of my site?
Courses: Control Panel > Settings > Course Name and Description
Organizations: Control Panel > Settings > Organization Name and Description
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Q. When I display or download grades, I only see the first 999 students.
There is no solution for this problem at this time. We are hopeful that since this is a known issue, Blackboard (the company) will release a fix soon. A complete list of grades for all users can be obtained by going to Control Panel > Gradebook Views > View Grades by Item > click on name of Test > Item Grade list. If needed, the text on this page can be selected and copied.
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Q. It's my first time using Blackboard. Are there any handouts I can give my students?
You can direct them to the Blackboard Online Resources for Students, which includes a very helpful Frequently Asked Questions page. You can also print the Student's Getting Started Guide and distribute it in class.
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Q. When I open up a PowerPoint presentation, I get a blank page. What's the deal?
This problem presents itself when you have PowerPoint 2002, and either SP1 or no service packs. You need to upgrade to a minimum of Office XP SP 2. Some have had trouble installing SP2, and are opting for SP3. Or depending on your licensing, you could upgrade to Office 2003. The 2002 SPs are freely downloadable. The Office XP (2002) SP3 service pack is available for download from the Microsoft site at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=85af7bfd-6f69-4289-8bd1-eb966bcdfb5e&displaylang=en
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Q. Blackboard 7.1 currently does not support iFrames (Google Calendar) and Javascript
JavaScript and iFrame tags can be inserted in an HTML document. Next, upload the document as an attachment to any content area within Blackboard. This also applies to Google Calendar. If a user is trying to insert a Google Calendar, copy and paste the code (extracted from Google Calendar) into an HTML document first. Then upload it as an attachment to the content area.
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