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This feature accessed by clicking "manage" located to the right of any course content allows for the Faculty Member to restrict the access of course content to certain students for a limited period of time, or only after users have met (or fail to meet) predetermined objectives.
This term, meaning 'not at the same time', refers to methods of communication such as email, voice-mail and discussion boards, that do not rely on the sender and recipient being online at the same time.
Located in the Control Panel, the Assessment Manager allows faculty to create or update a quiz, test, pool or survey. It is also the location for accessing the Gradebook and requesting Course Statistics.
Faculty may create Assignments and post them for Students to complete. Faculty may attach separate files and students may send additional files to the Faculty Member with the completed Assignment. Faculty view and grade Assignments, once they are submitted, from within the Gradebook.
Blackboard is a course management system. The package was purchased by the university after a careful search and selection process. All teaching faculty and staff at NIU may use the software at no charge. Blackboard courses are accessed using a web browser, which necessitates no special software for either faculty or students in most cases.
A browser is a software program that enables a user to access hypertext files from any computer connected to the Internet. Commonly-used browsers include Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Opera, AOL, Web TV, Lynx, and Mosaic. Blackboard recommends using Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher for best results in accessing course materials.
Each course within Blackboard is created with a series of buttons along the left hand side. These buttons allow access to the different 'Content Areas' within the course.
This is known as the Virtual Classroom in Blackboard. It can be used to hold real-time (synchronous), online classroom discussions and question/answer forums. Chat features a community whiteboard where students and faculty can share webpages, and provides a forum where guest speakers and subject-matter experts can talk with the class.
Personal response pads used by students in conjunction with a personal response system to participate in classroom assessments.
The Virtual Classroom has been expanded and divided into two features: The Virtual Classroom and Lightweight Chat. Both are now managed under Collaboration.
Faculty use the Content Areas to present information in many formats, from basic text to multimedia. Faculty can add course materials to the Content Areas from the Control Panel.
The Control Panel gives access to the various features and tools available within Blackboard for course design and maintenance. All course administration is done through the Control Panel. It is accessed via a button on the course button bar, which is only visible to users with the role of Faculty Member, Teaching Assistant, Grader, or System Administrator.
Each course within Blackboard is created with a series of buttons along the left hand side. These buttons allow access to the different 'Content Areas' within the course.
The Classroom Personal System (CPS) is the personal response system by eInstruction that includes an integration with the NIU Blackboard system. CPS can be used in the classroom to engage your students and provide them with instant feedback, and then upload results from your class assessments conducted with CPS to Blackboard.
The criteria applied to an adaptive release rule narrows the availability of the item it is applied to. Multiple adapative release rules with numerous criteria may be created or modified using Adaptive Release: Advanced.
This view of the course navigation menu displays the folder structure of all course contents, making it possible for the user to navigate directly to a particular location in the course.
The Digital Drop Box is a personal file storage space for Blackboard users. It can also be used to exchange files between student and professor. A user's digital drop box can not be accessed by any other user. Students have a separate drop box where they can store files on the Blackboard server. Faculty Members cannot access student's drop boxes but students can send files from their drop box to the Faculty Member's drop box.
One of Blackboard's communication tools, Discussion Boards are asynchronous discussion areas where faculty and students can exchange ideas on a topic, post requests for assistance or conduct informal conversation. An overall topic for discussion, a FORUM, is created by the professor; subtopics within the forum are called THREADS and can be added by students.
The act of transmitting a file from a computer in another location to your own computer. The opposite of upload, where data is sent from your computer to another location.
The file exchange function, available only within the See Users/User Roles
HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language, the common language used for web pages. When entering content into a text box in Blackboard, you can choose one of three text types -Smart Text, Plain Text, or HTML. Using Smart Text or HTML to create Blackboard content gives you more control over the appearance of your content. Use HTML if you wish to enter HTML code or embed content using HTML within a Blackboard item.
The Add LRN Package feature allows you to create and place Microsoft LRN Content anywhere in the Content Areas. LRN Content is created using the Microsoft LRN Toolkit. For more information on this feature go to the Microsoft eLearn page.
Blackboard Learning Units enable students to follow a structured path for progressing through content. Faculty Members can present content items, files, and assessments in Learning Units. Faculty Members also have the option of enforcing the sequential path or allowing students to access any page within the Learning Unit at any time.
Lightweight Chat is a text-based chat tool that does not have the advanced functionality of the Virtual Classroom/Lecture Hall but is an option that is optimized for low bandwidth applications. It allows a group of users to conduct an online session through text-based messages.
To establish a connection to a computer or online service before using it. Users login to Blackboard using their original network username and password. Also referred to as Logon. For example, faculty use their Novell ID(a123456) while students use their z-id (z888888) in the Blackboard system.
To close the connection to a computer or online service after using it. To log out of a Blackboard session, click on the Logout button at the top of the screen. The logout process removes your login information from the Blackboard system and is highly recommended when ending a Blackboard session.
Blackboard modules are information boxes appearing in the Blackboard portal after logging-in to Blackboard. These information boxes can be customized and the changes retained.
People navigating in a virtual environment should follow proper protocols and have good online "manners" generally known as netiquette, or etiquette on the Net. You can review examples of online netiquette at: Albion's Online Book on Netiquette
Consisting of personal response pads (aka: "clickers) for students, a receiver, and desktop client software, the system allows the Faculty Member to quickly incorporate formative and/or summative assessments in the classroom, creating a complete interactive learning experience.
Text will appear just as it is entered. Links are not created automatically, and HTML tags are not recognized and rendered. See also Smart Text.
A test pool allows the Faculty Member to create and search collections of related questions. Questions can be grouped by any number of criteria, including topic, subject matter or difficulty of question. A question pool will generate a test of randomized questions from the database the Faculty Member creates. Pools can be created from (1) new questions or (2) made up of questions in previously written assessments. Faculty Members can create test pools using the Pool Manager located in the Control Panel.
This view of the course navigation menu is the traditional button or text view.
Review status makes it possible for students to note within Blackboard when they have reviewed content items.
A rule is a set of criteria that dertermines the visibility of the content item to users. If multiple rules are created, the content will be visible to the user if any or all the rules are met, depending on how the rules are applied.
A scheduled section is created through a one-step process available through the Faculty Blackboard Course Utilities (FBCU) utility. Once the faculty member selects his department, course number, section and semester, the Blackboard server will match his course to the Registration and Records system that will upload the student roster. Complete instructions for using the FBCU are available here. The course will not have any course materials loaded; these can easily be copied from another course. Once the course is ready for student access, the faculty member must make the course available.
Scheduled Section requests made to the Blackboard server are processed twice daily on week days. Requests for copying materials from one course to another do not go through the Blackboard server so are made within minutes.
If a faculty member wishes to develop materials a semester or more before a course is to be offered, she may request a "shell" or development course in which to upload and arrange course materials. All shells are automatically made "unavailable," meaning that they are not accessible by students. Faculty can modify existing materials, add materials, and make any desired changes to these development courses and those changes will be saved. Faculty should not, however, attempt to add users to the shell.
Faculty can request a shell through the Faculty Blackboard Course Utilities (FBCU). Complete instructions for using the FBCU are available here. Requests for shells made to the Blackboard server are processed twice daily on week days.
This is the default when viewing Blackboard in Internet Explorer and all-around best choice. Smart Text will automatically convert web addresses entered with an "http://" prefix into clickable links. Smart Text will also recognize and render any HTML tags. See also Plain Text and HTML.
Synchronous communication allows users to login simultaneously from a variety of locations to participate in discussion. For example, a face-to-face or telephone conversation, a videoconference and a chat-room discussion are all forms of synchronous communication.
Located in the Control Panel, this area provides tools for the Faculty Member to add, modify and remove users and groups.
A Blackboard user is anyone using Blackboard, whether she/he is teaching staff, students, or administrative staff. There are six types of users:
- Instructor: The Instructor role has the highest level of privilege within a course. Typically, the Instructor is the person developing, teaching or facilitating the course.
- Teaching Assistant: Teaching assistants are enrolled into the course with a combination of development responsibilities. This includes the ability to develop test questions, verify grades, manage users, and many others. The role of a Teaching Assistant is assigned by the course instructor.
- Grader: The grader access only permits access to the gradebook. The role of a grader is assigned by the course instructor.
- Course Builder: Course builders have access to all course functions except the gradebook. The role of a course builder is assigned by the course instructor.
- Student: Enrolled students have access to all areas in the course that contain content and assessments. When the instructor matches the development shell to a scheduled course, student names are automatically added to courses by Registration and Records.
- Guest: Guests may enter the course and browse all components. Use the guest feature when guest speakers, visitors, or other faculty members want to view the online classroom environment.
The Virtual Classroom (available under Collaboration) has been completely rewritten. There are two separate parts, a basic Lightweight Chat, and the Virtual Classroom/Lecture Hall. Both provide opportunities for synchronous communication. The Virtual Classroom/Lecture Hall has all of the features of Lightweight Chat, but also includes hosting multiple concurrent synchronous sessions, facilitation of small breakouts discussions and whiteboard functions.