myUSF Blackboard News

Blackboard is offering Blackboard Sync, a Facebook application that delivers course information and updates from Blackboard to you inside Facebook. You can find out if you have a new assignment, grade, new forum posts, etc., without having to leave Facebook. Blackboard Sync also cross-references your courses’ Rosters with Facebook to make it easier to connect with your classmates through Facebook.

Except for Announcements, none of the actual course content is available in Facebook. Facebook users receive notifications about each new or updated piece of information, complete with a direct link to the item in their Blackboard course. Blackboard Sync will notify the student in Facebook that there is a new grade posted, and provide a link to their View My Grades page in the Blackboard coursesite. The student will still need to log into Blackboard to see that grade.

Each student can only see information specific to them for their own courses. They can’t share that information with Facebook Friends or Networks and there is no way for other students to access their information through Blackboard Sync.

Professors have the option to turn individual areas off for the Course site. If the professor does not want the students to see the Roster they can disable the Roster in the Blackboard Course Site and so on.

Students can set their Privacy options in OASIS so their email is not visible in Blackboard or the Blackboard Sync application. If the Roster is turned on and a student has downloaded the Blackboard Blackboard Sync application fellow students will be able to view another students Facebook page as if they were doing a normal search in Facebook. Students will still have the option in Facebook to set up their privacy settings.

The link to Bb Sync is on the myUSF tab. Once logged into myUSF, click on the tab and look for Bb Sync in the tools menu on the left.