Blackboard Resources for Faculty/Staff

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Blackboard Resources for Faculty/Staff

In December 2012, UND's Blackboard System will be upgraded in order to take advantage of new features. These features include auto-regrading of assessments, quick navigation to switch courses, negative scoring for exams, course themes, and more. Faculty will benefit from the easy-to-use intuitive interface, enhanced workflows, and an extended tool set of capabilities to improve their teaching with Blackboard. The upgrade will take place at 8:00 am, Thursday, December 27, 2012 through 8:00 am, Sunday, December 30, 2012.

Visit http://youtu.be/N6iV1s2j8jo for an overview of the new features.

Blackboard interface and course themes

This spring semester when logging into Blackboard the interface changes will immediately be noticeable as Blackboard has a new streamlined look as most of the icons for taking action are hidden. Most obvious will be hidden editing arrows and chevrons that allow users to drag-and-drop, make changes and add content to their course. These options are still possible, but only appear when your mouse hovers over certain areas. This results in a cleaner, less cluttered, and more modern interface.

Additionally, in content area folders, the assessments, assignments, and other linked items no longer appear underlined. When you move your mouse over the item, the pointer will change to hand indicating you can "click" to enter the item or access the linked file. This is similar to navigation on many web sites, including UND's home page.

Course themes provide an easy way to create a visually engaging course environment. Faculty can apply an available theme to match their preferences. Course themes add a background image to the course display and change the color of the interface, including the Course Menu, buttons, and controls. Applying a theme does not affect course content, and a course theme can be changed again at any time.

For more information on how to use this feature view the following resources:

New Blackboard interface and course themes (Video)

Blackboard current version to new version comparison (PDF)

Automatic regrading of assessments

Previously once students had taken an exam in Blackboard the assessment item could no longer be modified. Faculty would need to manually adjust each student's grade in the Grade Center if they had to make a change after an exam had been submitted.

Starting Spring 2013 the new updates to Blackboard will allow faculty to edit the exam AFTER it has already been taken by students. Faculty can now edit, delete, reorder, and change the point values of existing questions. Deleting questions or changing the point values affect all previously submitted test attempts. All affected submissions are regraded.

For more information on how to use this feature view the following resources:

Adjusting point values for test questions (Video)

Automatic regrading (Video)

Getting started with automatic regrading (PDF)

Course to course navigation

When in a course, you will no longer need to navigate to Blackboard's "My UND" page to access your other courses. You will now be able to move from course to course from within a course by clicking the drop-down menu in the upper left corner of the page. Additionally, you will be able to specify where you would like to go in the other course. For example, if you are in one course's Grade Center, you can jump to the next course's Grade Center easily to complete your grading.

For more information about this feature view the following resources:

Course to course navigation (Video)

Negative scoring for exams

Negative marking will allow for the application of negative point values for wrong answers on test questions. This allows faculty to prevent (by penalty) guessing on a multiple-choice quiz.

For more information about this feature view the following resources:

Negative scoring (Video)

The Center for Instructional & Learning Technologies will continue offering workshops on these new features in January. Please check the Workshop Schedule for details on these sessions.