New Features in
Version 7.1
There are
a number of new options available to instructors in
Blackboard 7.1. Here are some important things you should
know about this new version:
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Discussion Board
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Assessments & Gradebook
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Visual Text Box Editor
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Send Email
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Spell Check
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Course
Options
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Blackboard
Backpack
Discussion Board
Forum and Thread Grading
Several new features have been added to the
Discussion Board expanding it beyond its primary use as a
communication medium and transforming it into a
comprehensive and interactive teaching tool that fosters
academic exchange and debate.
Grading settings are now available when
creating or modifying a forum in a Course or Organization.
When grading is enabled for a forum, Instructors, Teaching
Assistants, and users with the Grader or Manager forum roles
will be able to access the Grade Forum Users page.
Instructors may choose to grade the forum or to enable
thread grading within the forum. If thread grading is
enabled for the forum, Instructors have the option to turn
grading on or off for each new thread.
Discussion Board Statistics
Discussion Board statistics are now a part of
the Performance Dashboard. The total number of forums in
which the user has participated is displayed for each user
in this column. Clicking on the number in this column
directs the instructor to a user detail page that displays
links to all forums in which the user has participated and
usage statistics for the user in each forum. Statistics
displayed include:
Additionally, the instructor can grade
discussion board participation from this page.
Forum Moderation and User Management
By default, Discussion Board users are given
forum roles based on their course, organization, or system
role. Instructors and Leaders are given the Manager role by
default. Managers control user privileges within the
Discussion Board through the use of roles. For example, the
Manager may delegate responsibility for reviewing posts to a
Moderator.
When creating a forum or modifying a forum’s
settings, instructors have the option of forcing moderation.
If moderation is enabled, when a user other than a Moderator
or Manager submits a post, the post is saved to the
Moderation Queue. New posts are displayed in the queue for
review and publication. If a post is returned, a return
message can be attached to the post allowing the Moderator
to inform the user why the post was not accepted for
publication.
By default, Discussion Board users that are
assigned to a group are allowed to create threads in the
Group Discussion Board forum. This means that group users
can now beginning using the Discussion Board immediately and
do not have to wait for the instructor to create a forum and
begin a thread.
Rate Posting
Post rating allows users to rate posts in the
forum on a scale of one to five stars. When enabled, post
rating is a simple yet effective tool for peer review.
Thread Subscriptions
The Subscribe to Thread notifies users each
time a new post is added to the thread. The notification is
enabled by the user and sent to the email address stored in
the user’s Personal Information. Users will not be able to
enter a different email address to which notifications will
be sent to prevent spam from being generated from the
Discussion Board. This feature is available to all users
with a forum role other than “blocked” if the feature is
enabled for the forum.
Enhancements of Existing Features
The following enhancements improve the user
experience in the Discussion Board:
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Instructors can copy Discussion Board forums to the same
Discussion Board or to another Discussion Board in the
course
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Users can
save posts as drafts, allowing them to work on a post
over more than one Blackboard session until the post is
ready for publishing.
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Instructors now have an availability option for all
forums on the Add/Modify Forum page. The availability
option replaces the functionality of archiving forums.
Forums that were archived before an update to 7.1 will
become Unavailable after the update process.
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The
Discussion Board uses Adaptive Release rules and other
availability rules such as Date set on any tool links to
the Discussion Board.
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Searches
can be limited or expanded to include current forum,
current thread, or all forums in the course.
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Users can
group posts into Collections. Collections can be sorted
and filtered to customize the Collection for easy
viewing and printing.
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Instructors can now “lock” a forum to prevent additional
posts, but allow users to read existing threads. This
feature replaces “archive” forum
Assessments &
Gradebook
Multiple Attempts
Assessments may now be set to allow unlimited
attempts or a specific number of attempts. The Gradebook
displays all of the attempts. The Gradebook item is scored
based on grading option: last attempt, first attempt,
highest score, lowest score, or average of scores.
Additionally, an Override field has been included so that
the instructor can override the score independent of any
attempts.
Now that all attempts are visible in the
Gradebook, the clearing options have been enhanced as well.
The instructor may choose to clear (or delete) the last
attempt, first attempt, highest attempt, lowest attempt, or
all attempts within a specified date range. This action may
be performed by item (for all students at once) or by user
(for a specific user).
Self-Assessment Options
The deployment of tests has been enhanced to
permit Self-Assessment in two forms: allow the instructor
and student to view the grade, or only allow the student to
view the grade. In each case, the grade is not included in
the final score for the student.
When
deploying a test in a course, the instructor should uncheck
the option called Include this test in
Gradebook score calculations
to allow
students to take the test without affecting their overall
score. Both the instructor and the student will still be
able to review the results of the test. This option was
previously only available through the Gradebook but is now
also available in the course content area when deploying a
test.
The second self-assessment option, called
Hide the score of this test from the Gradebook will
allow the student to take the test without displaying the
results to the instructor.
Test and Survey Import/Export
The Test and Survey Managers have been
enhanced to allow for importing and exporting, much like the
Pool Manager in Release 6. Users can export the test or
survey package to their local computers .
The ability to export and import tests and
surveys assists with content reuse and collaboration. When a
test (or survey) is created, creation settings are
determined, questions and answers are developed, and
metadata is associated. Now, all of that information can be
reused simply by exporting the entire test to the local
computer, and then importing it into another course’s Test
or Survey Manager. Once the test or survey has been
imported, any modifications may be made to customize it for
the other course.
Extra Credit
When creating a test, questions may now be
marked as extra credit only. This means that the points
possible for the entire test will not include the points
possible for that question. If the question is answered
correctly, the question points will be added to the points
correct, but if the question is answered incorrectly, there
is no score penalty.
Customized Feedback
Feedback options were previously organized
into four groups: score only, score + detailed results, all
of the above + correct answers, and all of the above +
detailed results, all of the above + feedback. These options
have been ungrouped so that users may select any combination
of the score, submitted answers, correct answers and
feedback to be displayed to the student at the end of an
assessment.
Enhanced Submission Reports
The submission report for assessments now
includes the following user information: First Name, Last
Name, Course Name, Username, Course ID, name of the
Assessment, and date/time of submission. This may be used as
verification by the student that they have indeed submitted
the assessment. Some instructors may require students to
print this as a permanent record of the activity.
Visual Text Box Editor
Cross-Browser, Cross Platform Support
The Visual Text Box Editor is now available
to users running any supported browser.
The Visual Text Box Editor is compatible with
the following browsers on Windows Operating Systems:
The Visual Text Box Editor will not work with
older versions of these browsers. Instead, the standard
options for entering text will appear.
The Visual Text Box Editor is compatible with
the following browsers on Macintosh Operating Systems:
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Safari
2.0
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Mozilla
Firefox 1.0
When run on Safari, the Visual Text Box
Editor Lite Version appears. The Lite Version does not
include the button controls for several features because
Safari does not yet support those rich-text editing
features. Some features that are not accessible from a
button in the Lite Version may still be activated using
keyboard shortcuts. For example, the cut, copy, and paste
functions may still be used through the keyboard shortcuts.
Macintosh users may also download and use the
free Mozilla Firefox 1.0 (or higher) Web Browser to use all
the features of the Text Box Editor.
Firefox
users, on all operating systems, must perform an extra step
to enable the cut, copy, and paste functions. This is a
function of the Firefox browser, and not Blackboard
applications. The first time an attempt is made to cut,
copy, or paste text in the Visual Text Box Editor, a message
from Firefox will appear explaining that the action is not
allowed. A link is provided for information on how to enable
the cut, copy, and paste functions by editing a Firefox
configuration file. The link currently points to
http://www.mozilla.org/editor/midasdemo/securityprefs.html.
Please check with Firefox for the most up-to-date
information on using rich-text tools for cut, copy, and
paste. Macintosh users may find that this does not fully
resolve the problem, particularly because Fireflox does not
permit pasting text from Microsoft Office files on Mac. To
accomplish this task, paste the text into a basic text
editor, such as TextEdit or Notepad and then paste the text
into the Visual Text Box Editor.
Send
Email
Every email sent via
Blackboard includes the Course ID in the subject line,
making incoming email easier to manage, sort, and filter.
Spell Check
Spell Check has been added to
Email, the Glossary tool
and Assignment comments.
Course Options
No more waiting!
Course import/export/archive and restore functions
are now asynchronous. Also, Intelligent Course Copy
allows instructors to choose whether course cartridge
content should be copied. If the content is secured and
requires student keys for access, these restrictions are
copied as well.
Blackboard Backpack
A tool which faculty and
students can download, allowing them to synch content from
the Blackboard system to their personal computer or tablet
PC. NOTE: To use Blackboard Backpack,
additional software must be purchased by the user.