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Frequently Asked Questions

General

Course Request/Training

Course Setup and Availability

Course Content and Communication

Assignments and Grade books

Assessments - Quizzes and Surveys

General

What is new is Blackboard 7.3?
Discussion Board

  • The ability to mark discussion board posts read or unread has returned.
  • Mark posts Read when collected. It’s now takes only two clicks to marks every post in a collection as read.
  • Quick Collect unread posts in a forum. One click collects every unread post in a forum.
  • Return of the tree view

Early Warning System and Performance Dashboard

Instructors can monitor (using rules) student performance based on three significant criteria:

  • Due date - (The existing date field in the Grade book is now labeled "Due Date" to support the new addition of the Early Warning System)
  • Item grade
  • Online activity

This rule/criteria based method can also be used to pinpoint and encourage successful students:

  • support students who are exceeding expectations with additional resources
  • target achieving students for peer leadership or tutoring responsibilities
  • provide extra attention and an incentive for students to stay in school

Advanced Observer Functionality

  • Give advisors, mentors, and tutors the ability to monitor critical aspects of students’ learning experiences
  • Facilitate better, quicker identification of students who need extra attention
    • Easily observe multiple students
    • One student to many observers
    • One observer to many students
    • Many observers to many students

Announcements
Ensure that students see important announcements – before they log into Blackboard - by sending the announcement to their e-mail address. Simply check the checkbox at the bottom that says, "Email will be sent immediately to all course users.."

Grade book
Add individual comments to Grade book entries, encouraging student review reflection, or action.

Course Request/Training

How do I request a Blackboard course?
All courses automatically have a Blackboard course shell created for them.  You will only  need to request a course if you are combining sections with another instructor or if you are a newly assigned instructor to a course. 

How do I obtain my username and password?

  1. Go to the NOVA homepage, http://www.nvcc.edu/.
  2. Click on MyNOVA tab in upper right hand corner.
  3. Click New to your college? Look up your username and set your password.
  4. Enter your First Name, Last Name, Birth date (MMDDYY) and Social Security Number and click on Search. 
  5. Enter a new password , security question, answer to security question and click next. 
  6. Your username, emplid, email, and college are provided.

Remember to Sign Out and close browser window to ensure the security and privacy of your account information

How do I request training? 
Blackboard training sessions are held throughout the semester, please visit the TAC Training calendar http://tac.nvcc.edu/tactraining/fa08/ to see when the next workshop is being taught. 

Course Setup and Availability

Where do I and my students access Blackboard courses?
To log in to Blackboard, go to www.nvcc.edu and click on MyNOVA and enter your user name and password. You can also access Blackboard from www.learn.vccs.edu.

My students say they cannot see my course when they log into Blackboard, why is this happening?
Instructors must make their course available in order for their students to be able to access their course. This must be done from the Control Panel.

  1. Under Course Options, select Settings
  • Select Course Availability
  • Select Yes
  • Click on Submit button to complete the process.
  • Click on OK to confirm Success and return to Settings Menu
  • Click Ok to Return to Control Panel Menu

If a student is newly added to the course then may not have been batch enrolled.  It takes 48 hours after a student has enrolled for a class to be added to the Blackboard course roster. Instructors can also manually enroll students as well.  

Course Content  and Communication

Can I transfer the old course content to a new course?
Yes, as a course Instructor, you can copy course materials as well as Group Settings, etc. from another course that you are teaching or taught before: After the new course has been setup, login to Blackboard, go to the old course, then Control Panel -> Course Copy -> Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course, then type in or Browse -> Search -> Select the Destination Course ID (the new course) --> Select the areas you want to make copy, Submit. You will receive the confirmation message when a copy is complete. 

Assignments and Grade book

Where is the digital drop box?
Blackboard 7.3 no longer supports the digital drop box.  Instructors can now use the Assignment Tool to have students submit their work directly into Blackboard. 

What is Assignment Tool and how can I use it? How to View the student submissions?
The Assignment Tool allows instructors to distribute assignment items, collect individual student responses, post comments to students, and grade on the items in a very convenient way.
To create an online Assignment, go to course Control Panel -> Assignments or any other course content area, find the "Learning Unit" drop down box on the right hand side of your screen,

(you may need to scroll to see the "Go" button), select "Assignment" in the drop down list and hit on "Go" button.

Follow the options on the preceding screen and click submit.  When you return to the course Assignments page from the course navigation, you will see the new item, with a link saying ">> View/Complete Assignment: your assignment". Students can click on this link to submit their homework documents along with their comments.

To view the details of student responses, go to Control Panel -> Grade book If a student has submitted his/her assignment, an exclamation mark   will be showing under the item. Click on it, then the button to view details. Instructors can view, score, give comments and store student performance results in the course Grade book

Assessments - Quizzes and Surveys

I have created an online Test/Survey/Pool, but it's still not visible in course pages, such as Assignments. How can the students see it?
To make the Test/Survey available to students, you will need to deploy the test. Go to Control Panel -> Assignments (or any other Contents area), click on Add Test button -> select the Test/Survey you have created, Submit.

Next, you will need to set the Test Availability. By default, the tests are set as Unavailable for students. To make it visible to students, go to Control Panel -> Assignments (or the course content area you placed the test) click on Modify button on the right of the linked Test -> Modify the Test Options -> select Yes on “Do you want to make the link visible?” -> Submit.

I have created a timed quiz. Will the system stop students from taking the quiz when the time is up?
No, the system will let the students continue taking the quiz but when the instructor checks the student score, it will flag the student entry as having gone above the time limit so the instructor becomes aware of this.

How do I find Test results?
Go to course Control Panel -> Grade book -> click on the Name of the Item, then "Item Grade List" to list/enter Grades, or go to "Assessment Attempt Details" to view the Test results in details.

I created a Test/Survey and made it available to students. Where can I find the results of the survey?
Go to Control Panel -> Grade book under the Assessment pane. Click on the title of the test/survey for which you would like to view results, next click on 'Assessment Attempt Details' (below Item Information) to find the statistics data, or "Download Results" to download Test/Survey results.

Are surveys submitted by students anonymous?
Yes. Surveys are submitted anonymously. The instructor has no way to determine which student submitted the survey.