myUSF Blackboard News

The functionality previously offered by the poorly performing Digital Dropbox has been replaced by the more effective and efficient Assignment tool. Thus, all new Spring 2006 course sites will have the Digital Dropbox tool disabled. Instructors who may still wish to use the Digital Dropbox may enable it from within the Control Panel.

Documentation on How to use the Assignment Tool is available on line at:
http://wiki.acomp.usf.edu/index.php/How_to_use_the_Assignment_Tool

The upgrade to Blackboard Application Pack 3 introduces new features, such as:

• Multi-Language Support by Institution, Course and User
• Adaptive Release allows an instructor to create custom learning paths through course content and activities. Content items, assessments, assignments, or other activities can be released to students based on a set of criteria including: date and time, specific users, group membership, grades or attempts on a particular test or assignment, or Review Status of another item in the course.
• Review Status
• Advanced Assessment Questions allows the creation of additional questions types within assessments and includes:
  • Calculated Formula – include calculations within the question. The calculations can have changing values within them for each exam.
  • Calculated Numeric – answer is a number or within a certain range of numbers.
  • File Upload – student answers the question by uploading a file.
  • Hotspot – student designates a “hotspot” on an image that was previously uploaded by the instructor.
  • Either/Or – answer is Yes/No, Agree/Disagree, Right/Wrong.
  • Fill in Multiple Blanks – type in free-form answers to multiple blanks within a sentence.
  • Jumbled Sentence – select from a drop-down of answers to fill in multiple blanks within a sentence.
  • Opinion Scale/Likert – answer is selection based on a scale such as Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, etc.
  • Short Answer – answer is typed into a free-form text box with a set limit.
• Assessment Question Completion Status
• Randomize Multiple Choice Answers
• Assessment Creation Metadata Options
• Performance Dashboard gives instructors the ability to see key information and outcomes for all course users. The Performance Dashboard displays the last user login, their course role, Adaptive Release criteria, Review Status for content items, and grades. Instructors can sort the information by multiple criteria.
• Syllabus Builder guides the instructor through a very simple process for building a syllabus without knowledge of HTML. The tool automatically generates lesson shells and the instructor has a choice of a pre-formatted style or creating a new one.
• What’s New Module
• Advanced Course Menu separates commonly used tools from the Course Menu to make them easier to find and use. The new Detail view lets users expand and collapse the Course Menu, and displays a clickable link to each item in the course. If allowed by the instructor, users can toggle between the Course Menu view and the Detail view.
• Additional Blackboard Content System Integration
• SCORM 2004
• Gradebook Null Option
• Learning Object Catalog
• External Link Item Type

Academic Computing has scheduled 90-minutes workshops to introduce these new features in our Training Center on the 6th floor of the Tampa Campus Library, LIB 618A.

Quick tutorials/overviews of these new features are also available on line at: http://www.blackboard.com/viewlets/viewlets.htm

The Instructor Manual for Blackboard 6.3 is available online at: http://www.blackboard.com/docs/r6/6_3/en_US/instructor/bbas_r6_3_instructor/