Blackboard was upgraded from Service Pack 5 to Service Pack 9 in September 2013.
There are several new features in Service Pack 9 that will benefit students and instructors. See TAC’s web page for more details on what’s new in the upgrade.
Author: Lynn Greenough
Instructional Technology Specialist at Oregon State University, and chair of the Blackboard Steering Committee
Scheduled Blackboard Maintenance April – December 2013
We are happy to announce a series of scheduled outages to perform maintenance on Blackboard.
We are also planning two longer outages later this year for proposed service pack upgrades.
The planned maintenance and upgrades will benefit Blackboard users and keep our system stable and up-to-date.
Outage schedule:
– 3-hour (6-9AM) outages on the following Saturdays for general maintenance activities
April 20 2013 – complete
May 18 2013 – complete
July 6 2013 – complete
August 3 2013 – complete
October 19 2013 – complete
November 28 2013 (Thanksgiving Day) – this outage will last from 6 am – 6 pm – complete
– 3 day outages for proposed service pack upgrades:
September 13-15 2013: Service Pack 9 – complete
December 20-22 2013
Blackboard Mobile
Blackboard Mobile Learn, an app for Mac and Android devices, is available for students and instructors to purchase and download directly from the Apple or Android store for $1.99 per year, or $5.99 for a lifetime license. The mobile app allows you to use some of the features of a full Blackboard course site on your smartphone or tablet: post announcements, use discussion boards and blogs, view class lists, and check tasks. More information on Blackboard Mobile here
Plagiarism Prevention Resources and SafeAssign
SafeAssign, a plagiarism prevention service, was made available in Blackboard for instructors to use in their course sites over Spring Break 2013. SafeAssign is part of a campus-wide plagiarism prevention training and support initiative for instructors and students. This program is a partnership between Technology Across the Curriculum (TAC) and the Office of Student Conduct. SafeAssign is entirely optional for instructors; there are many ways to address plagiarism without using SafeAssign. Plagiarism prevention resources for instructors and students are available online.
As of Week 7 of S2013, 114 instructors teaching 24 different subjects had created more than 180 SafeAssignments in Blackboard courses sites.
The Blackboard Steering Committee created a survey to gather baseline metrics on how SafeAssign is being used by instructors and students, and to what extent users value SafeAssign as a tool to help student prevents plagiarism and improve their writing.
The SA_S2013_survey_summary highlights conclusions and recommended next steps based on responses to the SafeAssign surveys.
Changes to Cross-Listed and Combined Course Sites
Changes in the ways that cross-listed courses and combined sections are displayed in Blackboard rolled out on March 6. Until recently, instructors combined sites (e.g. C001) or a cross-listed sites (e.g. X495), but not both. If you have multiple sections of a cross-listed course, you now have the option to choose between a combined site or a cross-listed site; both will be generated in Blackboard. More details here on combined and cross-listed sites
Blackboard Instructor Survey
In November 2012 the Blackboard Steering Committee distributed a 19-question survey of OSU instructors, faculty and GTA’s designed to find out the following:
- What types of courses are instructors using Blackboard for?
- If they are not using Blackboard, why not?
- Of those who are using Blackboard, which features do they use, and how frequently are those features used to assess student learning?
- How do instructors access technical and user support?
- Are instructors aware of the Blackboard Steering Committee?
- What comments do instructors have on Blackboard features and potential improvements for Blackboard?
Approximately 340 instructors responded to the survey; they represent a broad diversity of positions from tenured professor to TA’s, as well as emeritus faculty, research staff, administrators and INTO instructors. 91% of respondents use Blackboard; 9% do not.
On-campus, Ecampus and Hybrid courses were well represented in the survey, as were both small and large sections (over 400 students) that used Blackboard. The responses indicate that Blackboard is widely-used for a range of teaching activity.
The Steering Committee derived five key findings and three recommended next steps, based on the responses we received. You can review the survey summary here.
Paste from Word tool
Pasting text from MS Word directly onto a Blackboard page can cause formatting issues due to hidden code in Word.
Blackboard has a Paste from Word tool in the text editor that cleans up code in the pasted text while retaining its formatting.
Look for a button on the right side of the bottom tool bar in the text editor window. Click the down arrow, and select Paste from Word:
Course Copy Email
If you copy a course to a new term, Blackboard sends an automated “course copy complete” email.
But this email is often sent before the actual copy process has completed. It’s a good idea to wait a few hours after receiving the email before checking the new course site.
You can find the course copy in the Control Panel under Packages and Utilities:
Welcome to the Blackboard Steering Committee Site
About the Blackboard Steering Committee
What we do – The Blackboard Steering Committee ensures strategic alignment of OSU’s learning management system with campus needs. Our charter is to establish a repeatable process to gather, evaluate and prioritize requests for features and functionality in Blackboard. Our evaluation criteria are based on impact to students, instructors and data, as well as potential legal, technical, FERPA and disability access issues.
The committee also provides regular reporting to the OSU community on changes and updates to Blackboard.
Who we are – OSU faculty, the Registrar’s office, IT, Technology Across the Curriculum, the Library, Center for Teaching and Learning, and Ecampus are all represented on the committee (ASOSU pending).