End of Semester Wrap-Up

There are a few things to do before you tie the fall semester in a neat bow and head off to enjoy the holidays.

• Double-check your Grade Center total column to make sure it is calculating correctly
• Check to make sure you haven't hidden any students that have actually been in the class  (Grade Center > Manage > Row Visibility)
• Download the Grade Center to your hard drive for safekeeping
• Archive (backup) your course

Wishing everyone very happy holidays and a wonderful new year! See you during flex week!

Office 365 Reply All

You may have noticed that when accessing email on the web using Office 365, it defaults to "Reply All" instead of just "Reply." This can play havoc with campus communications, so here are instructions for how to change this default setting.

1.      Settings

2.      Options

 

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3.      Mail

4.      Automatic Processing

5.      Reply Settings

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6.      Reply

7.      Save

Online Student Readiness Tutorials

A new resource to help students prepare for taking online courses has been developed by the CCC Online Education Initiative (OEI). They developed eleven interactive modules covering topics that will help students understand whether or not online courses are right for them and introduce students to the skills and strategies that will help them be successful in online courses. Please assign some or all of these videos for your students to watch at the beginning of each semester. 

http://apps.3cmediasolutions.org/oei/students.html

Interactive Tutorials

01-Introduction to Online Learning	View
02-Getting Tech Ready	View
03-Organizing for Online Success	View
04-Online Study Skills and Managing Time	View
05-Communication Skills for Online Learning	View
06-Online Reading Strategies	View
07-Career Planning	View
08-Educational Planning	View
09-Instructional Support	View
10-Personal Support	View
11-Financial Planning	View

Interactive Tools

• Cost Calculator
• Computer Readiness Test
• Daily Schedule Calculator
• Study Schedule

Record an Intro Video for Your Students

"When you’re teaching an online or hybrid class, you want to connect with your students and make the experience as personable as possible. Introducing yourself to your students through a video is a great way to begin your online class. They’ll love being able to see your face, hear your voice, and get to know your personality from the start."

Read more from the Techsmith blog at http://blogs.techsmith.com/for-educators/back-to-school-record-intro-video/.

You can also create a video using a webcam and/or screen capture software to show your students around your Blackboard course using the free software from screencast-o-matic.com.

For $15/year you can buy the full version of screencast-o-matic's software that allows you to record only the webcam and use scripts to record/caption your videos.

No matter how you record the video, when you're done, upload the video to YouTube and link to it or embed it in your Blackboard container.

YouTube API Changes Causing Issues with YouTube Mashup and Video Everywhere

The following is a bulletin from Blackboard. This issue is unrelated to the recent upgrade and would have happened whether we upgraded or not.


Date Published: Jun 11,2015
Category: Product:Content Management,Extensions; Version:9.1,SaaS
Article No.: 000040643                                                                                                                                                      

Bulletin/Advisory Information: The YouTube Mashup and Video Everywhere tools in the Blackboard Learn software, which allow instructors to integrate videos directly into their lessons and courses from YouTube, is not functioning properly due to Google’s planned retirement of the YouTube Data API (v2).

The result of this is that users are unable to play existing YouTube Mashup links or upload/embed YouTube videos using YouTube Mashup or Video Everywhere. While the uploaded video can still be found on youtube.com, searching for it in the respective course will direct users to https://youtube.com/devicesupport.

It is our top software maintenance priority to restore this functionality, and has been for several months. Our product teams have been working diligently to update our software to work with the YouTube Data API (v3).  We plan on releasing patches as soon as development is completed and patches have passed quality assurance. We estimate that these patches will be available within the next 30 days.

Until software patches are made available, the following workarounds are available.

Workaround #1 - For Existing Links

Access the link by opening it in a new tab within your browser.

Workaround #2 - For Adding New Videos

Instructors who have lost access, and/or are unable to upload and embed YouTube videos using the YouTube Mashup or Video Everywhere tools may go to youtube.com and upload the video(s) via these instructions:
(note: this section modified from Blackboard's original instructions to be clearer)

• Navigate to https://youtube.com and search for the video you want
• Copy the URL
• In Blackboard, select an Assignments/Content area from your menu
• Create a new item in this content area by selecting Build Content > Item
• Enter a Name
• On the content editor toolbar, click the Insert/Edit Embedded Media icon
  (it will bring up a new window)
  
• Change the Type to iFrame
• Paste the URL into File/URL
• Click Insert
• Submit your new item

Close of Spring Semester Reminders

Below are some reminders to wrap up your spring courses before taking off for destinations far and wide.

• Double-check your Grade Center Total column to make sure it is calculating correctly.
• Check to make sure you haven't hidden any students that have actually been in the class.  (Grade Center > Manage > Row Visibility)
• Download the Grade Center to your hard drive
• Archive (backup) your course.

Enjoy!!

SafeAssign Integration with Regular Assignments

On June 5th and 6th, 2015, we are upgrading to a new version of Blackboard. The biggest change in this new version is that SafeAssignments will be integrated into regular assignments.

SafeAssignments are Blackboard assignments that are checked for plagiarism. Currently, to add an assignment to a content area you hover over the Assessments button and have to choose between an Assignment or a SafeAssignment.

The new integration between SafeAssignments and regular Assignments means there will be only one type of Assignment to choose.

The advantage of this integration is that almost all the features of a regular Assignment are now available for assignments checked for plagiarism. This includes the ability to attach a file, inline grading, and rubrics.

SafeAssignments that already exist in containers prior to this upgrade will still work without any problems at all. You will still access them through Course Tools > SafeAssign. They will not be automatically converted to these new integrated assignments. 

This is not a problem, however, you may prefer to use the new integrated assignments to take advantage of the advanced features. There are a couple of different ways to get your old SafeAssignments converted to the new integrated assignments once the upgrade is complete.

1. Recreate the SafeAssignments by hand.
   
   To do this, go into a content area, hover over Assessments, and choose Assignment from the drop-down as seen in the image above. Fill out the fields as usual and in the Submission Details section, put check marks next to "Check submissions for plagiarism using SafeAssign" and "Allow students to view SafeAssign originality report for their attempts".
    
2. Wait until after the upgrade to do a Course Copy.
   
   If you wait to copy your course until after the upgrade is complete, your assignments will be automatically converted. If you are not teaching a course this summer, and haven't already copied courses for fall, I'd really recommend you choose this option and wait to copy your courses until after the upgrade is complete on June 7th.
    
3. Just wait until the next time you copy your course.
   
   The next time you copy the course after the upgrade, SafeAssignments will automatically be converted to the new integrated assignments. There is no problem leaving SafeAssignments as they are. You just won't have the advanced features available to regular assignments. Even if you've already copied courses for the summer and/or fall, there's no harm in leaving SafeAssignments as they are until the next time you copy your course.

To find out more about SafeAssign and the new integrated assignments, watch the video at https://youtu.be/QId2Xza_95k.

Additional information and step-by-step tutorial: https://help.blackboard.com/en-us/Learn/9.1_2014_04/Instructor/100_Assignments/025_Use_SafeAssign