Author: admin

Beginning September 2012, the Blackboard Mobile App for iOS & Android has moved to a subscription model that works on all carriers/networks as well as WiFi.

Previously, the Blackboard Mobile Learn App available to UO students and faculty was available only on WiFi, and not available via cell networks. Blackboard’s new Personal License option allows students and instructors to access to the fully functional app. Bb users will be able to choose between two different introductory pricing options: $1.99 per year or a one-time / lifetime fee of $5.99. The app is available for iOS and Android users on all carriers and networks.

For more information, please see attached or see Blackboard’s official announcement:

http://www.blackboard.com/Platforms/Mobile/Products/Mobile-Learn.aspx

If you have any further questions please feel free to contact CMET Consulting and below you’ll find more resources.

Blackboard Mobile Learn Feature Guide

Best Practices for Mobile Friendly Courses

Handout for Faculty

Many faculty have received emails from Lore with the UO logo claiming to be a blackboard alternative. Their predecessor was “coursekit”, and this company has a reputation for aggressive advertising and has hired many students from enrolled institutions to do marketing on their behalf.

We’ve evaluated the product (along with various other course management systems), and will continue to look at it, but for now we see a number of issues that could limit widespread adoption at the UO. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact us at blackboard@ithelp.uoregon.edu

Some professors have not been able to view the last student in their grade center.
The final row is not showing up and the scroll bar does not enable the instructors
to scroll all the way down to see their last student. This issue has occurred more
commonly when instructors are using Mac laptops with a Firefox web browser.

We have a workaround in the following FAQ which has to do with the “zoom” set on their browser.
http://library.uoregon.edu/scis/blackboard/faq/instructors/i56.html
If you are using a Mac press “Command + 0” key to zoom out in order to view the entire Grade Center.

Another quick way to check is to reorder the grade center rows by clicking the “last name”
column to sort it in descending rather than ascending order so that the last student is
displayed first and you can see whether they have been getting grades recorded or not.

Summer term is here.

Reminder: the place to start for blackboard help is http://library.uoregon.edu/scis/blackboard/help.

Students: notice that your My Courses still lists courses from spring and may not list all of your summer courses.  That’s as expected.

As usual, coursesites from spring term will remain available for about a week, then will disappear from students’ My Courses lists.  And summer term coursesites will only appear when the professor makes them available.

Instructors: remember that you must make your site “available” to allow your students to see it. After you have added some content, visit Control Panel > Customization > Properties and change Availability to “yes.” For more information see the FAQ at http://library.uoregon.edu/scis/blackboard/faq/instructors/i47.html.

The duckid.uoregon.edu system for changing passwords was down on Saturday, but is is now back in operation. Please contact UO Information Services for more information.

Spring term is here.

Reminder: the place to start for blackboard help is http://library.uoregon.edu/scis/blackboard/help.

Students: notice that your My Courses still lists courses from winter and may not list all of your spring courses.  That’s as expected.

As usual, coursesites from winter term will remain available for about a week, then will disappear from students’ My Courses lists.  And spring term coursesites will only appear when the professor makes them available.

Instructors: remember that you must make your site “available” to allow your students to see it. After you have added some content, visit Control Panel > Customization > Properties and change Availability to “yes.” For more information see the FAQ at http://library.uoregon.edu/scis/blackboard/faq/instructors/i47.html.

There will be a series of power outages during spring break, 3/27 and 3/28. .

We don’t have many details from Campus Operations, but best guess is that there will be several campus-wide outages early in the mornings of 3/27 and 3/28. Most buildings and systems should be back on line by 8am

Check out some free webinars on effective use of Blackboard in teaching:

The Blackboard Innovative Teaching Series (BITS) is a free monthly webinar series from Blackboard, Inc. on how to use Blackboard to improve teaching. View the BITS schedule.  The first webinar in the series is

Session #1: Wikis, Blogs, Forums, Journals—Which One Do I Use & Why?
Time & Date: 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm ET, Monday, February 27, 2012

The UO’s Teaching Effectiveness Program also offers a series of workshops and other advice on teaching with Blackboard and other technologies.  See http://tep.uoregon.edu/technology/.

For online help that is more focused on “how to” than on “why”, we’ve also collected additional resources for instructors on our faculty help pages.