The following archive serves as a permanent record of the NIU Blackboard news and announcements posted on the Teaching with Blackboard website since January 1, 2007.
Date Posted: 7/30/2008
After reviewing feedback from faculty regarding the Wimba Classroom pilot, the Provost's Office has decided to continue the Wimba Classroom license. Therefore, the Wimba Classroom tool will continue to be available in Blackboard for all NIU faculty to utilize in extending their communications with students throughout the 2008-2009 academic year.
To request that Wimba Classroom be enabled in your Blackboard course(s), each semester after requesting the creation of your Blackboard courses, simply complete the online request form at http://www.blackboard.niu.edu/blackboard/resources/wimbaclassroom.shtml#requestform
A wealth of helpful documentation, video tutorials, and online training resources regarding Wimba Classroom are available at http://www.blackboard.niu.edu/blackboard/resources/wimbaclassroom.shtml
Those planning on using Wimba Classroom this fall you may find the upcoming online workshop, "Success with Wimba Classroom" to be of great benefit. This one hour introductory session is designed to equip you with the five teaching tips for engaging, interactive sessions. You will learn the recommended techniques to prepare your participants before attending your live session. You will also learn how to communicate with and manage the interactions of your participants. Best practice tips will be covered regarding your content along with an overview of the importance of archives. Complete details are available at http://www.wimba.com/eventreg/participant/registration.php?eventid=1159
Date Posted: 2/26/2008
Many faculty consider live audio and visual interactions to be important elements of effective teaching and learning experiences online. Yet, such interactions can be difficult to foster in an online learning environment.
NIU has arranged for a six month, campus-wide trial license of Wimba Classroom, an online collaboration suite designed exclusively for education that integrates with Blackboard and allows educators and students to engage effectively by combining interactive technologies with instructional best practices.
Some of the features of Wimba Classroom include:
A demonstration of Wimba Classroom will be held on Monday, March 3rd from 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm in Altgeld Hall, Room 100. NIU faculty/staff, graduate teaching assistants, and leaders of Blackboard communities are encouraged to come and learn more about the capabilities of this collaboration suite and how to participate in the pilot implementation for enhancing the teaching and learning experience.
For more details about this online collaboration suite and to request Wimba Classroom be activated in your Blackboard course(s) and/or community, visit http://www.blackboard.niu.edu/blackboard/resources/wimbaclassroom.shtml.
Date Posted: 1/14/2008
Beginning Tuesday, January 15, 2008, several significant new features will be available in Blackboard.
Content Collection
The Blackboard Content Collection is a tool that allows NIU faculty to store, manage, and share content in new ways. The Content Collection has a number of features that enhance the capabilities that already exist in the Blackboard Learning System. This tool will especially eliminate the need for copying the same content into multiple sections of a course or into course sections from one semester to next semester as the content will be stored centrally in the Content Collection and linked to course sections.
The Blackboard Content Collection
For more details about the Content Collection feature in Blackboard, visit http://www.blackboard.niu.edu/blackboard/coursecontent/collection.shtml.
SafeAssign: Plagiarism Prevention Using Blackboard
SafeAssign is a plagiarism prevention tool that allows faculty/staff to protect the originality of work and ensure a fair playing ground for all students. SafeAssign is integrated with Blackboard and prevents plagiarism by detecting unoriginal content in students' papers. SafeAssign can also further deter plagiarism by creating opportunities to educate students on proper attribution and citations while properly leveraging the wealth of information at their disposal.
For more details about SafeAssign, visit http://www.blackboard.niu.edu/blackboard/resources/safeassign.shtml. To learn more about an upcoming hands-on workshop for NIU faculty/staff introducing SafeAssign, visit http://www.facdev.niu.edu/facdev/programs/january2008.shtml#jan29.
Scholar: Academic Resource Sharing Using Blackboard
Social bookmarking is an increasingly popular way to find, save, classify, evaluate and share Internet resources. Users can save or "bookmark" favorite Web sites and classify, or "tag" them any way that works for them. These bookmarks are then added not only to their personal list, but also to the overall repository where others can see them. Students and faculty can then use each other's classifications, as well as any of the other information they have regarding those resources (who saved it, how many people saved it, etc.) to evaluate and find what they are looking for.
Scholar is an academic resource sharing, or "social bookmarking", service that is customized for education and integrated with the Blackboard Learning System. Built on the principles of Web 2.0, Scholar provides students and faculty with an exciting new way to store, share and discover educationally viable resources on the Web and use them in their everyday teaching, learning and research.
For more details about Scholar, visit http://www.blackboard.niu.edu/blackboard/resources/scholar.shtml. To learn more about an upcoming hands-on workshop for NIU faculty/staff introducing Scholar, visit http://www.facdev.niu.edu/facdev/programs/january2008.shtml#jan29.
There will be several opportunities during the spring semester to learn more about these new features. For a complete listing of upcoming Blackboard workshops offered by the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center, visit http://www.blackboard.niu.edu/blackboard/workshops.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the ITS Helpdesk at Helpdesk@niu.edu.
Date Posted: 12/17/2007
The Blackboard Content Collection is a new tool that allows faculty and students to store, manage, and share content. The Content Collection has a number of features that enhance the capabilities that already exist in the Blackboard Learning System:
The Blackboard Content Collection is scheduled to be available to NIU faculty in January 2008. For more details on how to use the new Blackboard Content Collection, click here.
Date Posted: 09/27/2007
The processes to remove old Blackboard courses from the system will begin Oct 15, 2007.
Following the removal process, only courses taught within the last 13 months will appear among Faculty Members' lists of courses. Course ID numbers are used to identify courses taught within the last 13 months. Shell courses will not be affected.
The process is scheduled to run according to the following schedule.
Removal Date: October 15, 2007
Semesters Removed: Spring and Summer 2006
You will need to archive any courses you wish to retain before the course removal process begins. Faculty members are responsible for archiving their own courses.
The archival procedure should be a two-step process:
* First, download all grade books that need to be retained. Downloaded grade book files can be saved and accessed in Excel. Instructions are online at http://www.blackboard.niu.edu/blackboard/gradebook/downloading.shtml
* Second, archive course materials and save them on a zip, CD or hard drive. Visit the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center online documentation for instructions at http://www.blackboard.niu.edu/blackboard/coursecontent/archive.shtml
If you have any problems archiving a course or have other concerns, please contact the ITS Helpdesk at 753-8100 or helpdesk@niu.edu.
Date Posted: 07/12/2007
NIU has installed a building block to Blackboard that now allows faculty to easily create a course podcast in Blackboard. To learn more about podcasting or the steps to creating a course podcast, click here.
Date Posted: 05/29/2007
A major upgrade was successfully performed on Blackboard over Memorial Day weekend. The new version of Blackboard, version 7.1, includes many new features and changes to our Blackboard environment. Major feature changes are documented here.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the ITS Helpdesk at Helpdesk@niu.edu.
Date Posted: 05/16/2007
When using Collaboration Tools and Visual Text Box Editor in Blackboard 7.1, it is recommended that you use version 1.5 of the Java 2 Runtime Environment. At this time, JRE 1.6 is not supported and users should un-install this version and install an older 1.5 version of JRE. To find out more about this issue please click here.
Date Posted: 05/04/2007
A major upgrade is scheduled to be performed on Blackboard over Memorial Day weekend. The outage is tentatively scheduled to begin at 9 PM on Saturday, May 26th. The new version of Blackboard, version 7.1, is scheduled to be available at 8 AM on Tuesday, May 29th. During this time, Blackboard (webcourses.niu.edu) will be UNAVAILABLE. We regret any inconvenience this may cause.
Version 7.1 will bring many new features and changes to our Blackboard environment. There will be several opportunities to learn more about these upcoming features. Major feature changes are documented online at http://www.blackboard.niu.edu/blackboard/resources/version71.shtml
There is also an upcoming workshop for faculty/staff scheduled to be held May 10th. More information can be found online at: http://www.facdev.niu.edu/facdev/programs/summer2007.shtml#may10
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the ITS Helpdesk at Helpdesk@niu.edu.
Date Posted: 04/18/2007
Prior to the start of summer semester, Blackboard is scheduled to be upgraded from version 6.3 to 7.1. While Blackboard undergoes regular updates behind-the-scenes that do not impact the user experience other than improving overall system performance, this particular upgrade includes some substantial new user features and system capabilities that previously have not existed. Click here to view a brief overview of the most substantial new features that NIU faculty and staff can expect when Blackboard is upgraded. Subsequent tutorials and handouts will address new features in greater depth. These new features will be available in all NIU Blackboard courses and communities.
Date Posted: 03/13/2007
The intersession, summer, and fall 2007 course schedules will be available online Tuesday, March 13, 2007. This means that faculty can start the process of requesting their Bb course sections or master courses for those sessions any time after March 13. *Note - If you are teaching multiple sections of the same course, you may request a master course be configured. Click here to learn more about teaching multiple course sections in Blackboard.
Date Posted: 02/27/2007
Timed Blackboard tests and quizzes generally display a timer to students in the status bar, but it will be blocked for students using IE 7 unless they make the following setting changes.
1. Add our Blackboard URL as a Trusted site. To do so, go to:
Date Posted: 02/15/2007
At this time, Blackboard Inc. has not certified Windows Vista with any version of the Blackboard online learning system. Their development team is looking to certify Windows Vista with a future release of Blackboard 7.x.
There are known issues with using Windows Vista to access Blackboard. Please click here to learn more.
Date Posted: 02/06/2007
The processes to remove old Blackboard courses from the system will be run according to the following schedule. Following the removal process, only courses taught within the last 13 months will appear among Faculty Members' lists of courses. Course ID numbers are used to identify courses taught within the last 13 months. Shell courses will not be affected.
Removal Date: March 15, 2007
Semesters Removed: Fall 2005
You will need to archive any courses you wish to retain before the course removal process begins. Faculty members are responsible for archiving their own courses.
The archival procedure should be a two-step process:
* First, download all grade books that need to be retained. Downloaded grade book files can be saved and accessed in Excel. Instructions are online.
* Second, archive course materials and save them on a zip, CD or hard drive. Visit the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center online documentation for instructions.
If you have any problems archiving a course, please contact the Customer Support Center at 815-753-8100.
Date Posted: 01/11/2007
Courses, by default, are not available to students until the faculty member decides to make them available. After the scheduled section is created and materials added to the course, faculty can make the course available by entering the course and going to Control Panel click Course Options click Settings click Course Availability click YES and then click Submit.
Date Posted: 01/03/2007
A database upgrade is scheduled to be performed on the production Blackboard servers beginning at 10 PM on Wednesday, January 10 and lasting for six hours until 4 AM on Thursday, January 11.
During this time, Blackboard (webcourses.niu.edu) will be UNAVAILABLE. We regret any inconvenience this may cause.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the ITS Customer Support Center at HelpDesk@niu.edu or 815-753-8100.
Date posted: 11/20/2006
Blackboard users who have upgraded Internet Explorer to version 7.0 may notice a warning message when attempting to access Blackboard that states, “There is a problem with this website’s security certificate” as depicted below.
If you have received this message in Internet Explorer or any other browser, install the NIU security certificates for the browser that you are using. Click here for instructions and links to download and install the security certificates. Additional details are also included in episode 7 of the Teaching with Blackboard podcast.
Last Updated: 7/30/2008