myUSF Blackboard News

The version of the Virtual Classroom / Lightweight Chat included in Blackboard 7.3 is not currently compatible with Java 6. We are planning to patch Blackboard within the next two weeks to correct this issue, but for now, if you have troubles loading the Virtual Classroom, please check if you are using Java 6.

A patch is coming from Blackboard which will allow the chat tool to work with Java 6. It will be installed during one of our regular maintenance windows, Friday Morning from midnight and 5am. We hope to have this tested and ready to install in the next two weeks. For now, the workaround is to downgrade to Java 5.

The Safe Assign migration has finally completed, and Course Copy is
now safe to use across all courses. If you have any questions about
Safe Assign, Course Copy, or any other aspects of myUSF/Blackboard,
please email myusf@acomp.usf.edu.

Thank you for your patience during this process

Academic Computing

This updated Content Player Blackboard Building Block™ provides improved support for SCORM 2004 v2 content including:

• Improved Content Player interactions with Gradebook
• Improved handling of Flow based packages
• Improved testing using packages provided by a number of content publishers and client partners
• Additional bug fixes

The Content Player Blackboard Building Block enables instructors to upload and play content that conforms to SCORM, IMS, or NLN standards to a course. This tool is available to instructors through the Control Panel.

From an Instructor perspective they can use this tool within the content areas as they add/modify content items within their course. Instructors and Students interact with IMS, SCORM, and NLN content just as they would with other types of Content Items.

Students accessing IMS, SCORM, or NLN Content Items simply select the Content Items from within the course. A new browser window opens and displays the content.

When Adding SCORM, IMS, or NLN data, the Instructor can enforce sequential navigation and add Content Items to the Gradebook. When a Student completes a package the results are automatically reported in the Gradebook.

Blah blah blah technical legalese follows…..
The Content Player Building Block supports content that conforms to the IMS Content and Packaging 1.1.3 standard with the web content attribute. Information about the standard can be found at:
http://www.imsglobal.org/af/afv1p0/imsafwhitepaperv1p0.html

The Content Player Building Block supports NLN content. NLN content conforms to the SCORM 1.2 & 2004 standard. The UK NLN Materials Team is responsible for commissioning and developing over 750 hours of high quality e-learning materials for the NLN that highlights the potential of using e-learning materials in learning and teaching, and offers advice on best practices in integrating the NLN materials into teaching and learning schemes. http://www.nln.ac.uk/


The upgrade to Blackboard 7.3 changed the way Respondus retrieves the list of courses you teach. Respondus has released an update to their tool which corrects this problem. Most Respondus setups will automatically check for updates, but if you want to make sure you have the latest, here’s how

• Start Respondus
• Under the Help Menu, select Check For Update
• Click the button “Get Update”
• Once complete, restart Respondus

That should take care of this little inconvenience.

If you have any questions about this or any other aspect of myUSF Blackboard, please let us know by emailing myusf@acomp.usf.edu or calling the Academic Computing Helpdesk at 974-1222.

Each semester we get a handful of questions about why Test Links in content areas aren’t included when the course is copied. I ran a series of tests to see what is and is not copied for certain combinations of Course Copy Options.

To make sure Test Links are copied, you must select Course Copy options for Content, Text/Surveys/Pools, and Gradebook Items.

1) Content (only)
Most all content items were copied.
Safe Assignment links were copied, but course will need synchronization.
No Test/Survey Links or Assignments were copied.
The Gradebook is empty.

4) Content & Test/Survey/Pools & Gradebook Items
All test, surveys, and pools are copied into Test Manager/Pool Manager.
All content items were copied.
Including links to Tests/Surveys, and Assignments.
The Gradebook is populated with columns.
Safe Assignment links were copied, but course will need synchronization.

The moral of the story is to use copy option 4 to copy a complete, working version of your course including links to tests.

If you have any questions about this or any other aspect of myUSF Blackboard, please let us know by emailing myusf@acomp.usf.edu or calling the Academic Computing Helpdesk at 974-1222.

The 7.3 upgrade went pretty well. One small problem we just discovered is that the ‘read’ status of all threads in all discussion boards has been reset to be unread. That is, any threads that were marked as read are now displaying as unread. If you go back and mark them read again, they will stay read.

A silver lining; The upgrade to 7.3 made it much easier to re-mark the threads as read. Here’s how

1. Go into your course discussion board
2. In the upper right, click Search
3. Check the “Before” box, and enter the date Aug 17(the date of the upgrade), Click Go.
4. Next to Select All, click Go, then along the top, click Mark Read.

There you go.

At the BbWorld 07 conference the last July, Blackboard surprised us all by announcing they had acquired an OEM version of Safe Assignment, which they are relabeling as Safe Assign and giving at no charge to all Blackboard Enterprise customers.

We’re going to switch to the Blackboard version starting Friday August 17th. The switchover will not cause any data loss. There is a migration procedure we have to go through to move our institutional database from mydropbox to Blackboard. While the migration is happening, Safe Assignment will be unavailable on myUSF. Once the migration is complete, the new Safe Assign will be installed, and all existing Safe Assignment documents will be serviced by the new tool.

Additionally, we will be disabling Course Copy while the migration is in progress. We do not know what the effect of copying a course with Safe Assignments would be while the tool is being migrated. The migration is expected to take 4-5 days, after which Course Copy will be reenabled.

There are no changes required by the instructor. The migration will occur silently, and once complete there will be no changes to the structure of existing courses. Creating and using Safe Assign documents will work the same as it did with Safe Assignment.

Blackboard has a put up a good website with resources for using Safe Assign.

The Fall 2007 Final Exam Matrix is available to Instructors on the Courses tab within myUSF.