Missouri State University

Did You Know? You can allow multiple Assignment attempts in Blackboard!

Posted on by Brenda Burrell

Did You Know? You can allow your students to submit assignments multiple times, and Blackboard will record each “attempt” for you. To create an assignment that your students can submit in Blackboard, follow the steps at http://experts.missouristate.edu/display/bb9/Creating+an+Assignment. In Step 7, you can set the assignment to accept one attempt, unlimited attempts, or a number of attempts you specify (I like to allow two attempts for my students; it makes them stop to think about what they are submitting, but gives them a chance to correct a submission if, for example, they turned in the wrong file).

You will be able to access each attempt in the Grade Center (for details on grading in Blackboard, please visit http://experts.missouristate.edu/display/bb9/Viewing+Attempts+in+the+Grade+Center).

TIP: By default, the Grade Center will use the grade for the most recent attempt, but you can change this behavior. To do so, go to the course’s Control Panel -> Grade Center ->  Full Grade Center and go to the column header; click the “double down arrow” icon that will appear in the header and choose “Edit Column Information”. Look for the “Score attempts using” dropdown and select:

  • Grade of Last Attempt
  • Highest Grade
  • Lowest Grade
  • Grade of First Attempt
  • Average of Attempt Grades

Note that Blackboard requires a grade for each attempt, or for you to “Ignore” an attempt, in order to remove the “Needs Grading” icon. When multiple attempts are submitted, in View Grade Details there is a checkbox to “Ignore this attempt”; checking it will exempt the attempt.

Questions? Contact the Computer Services Help Desk:

By phone: 417-836-5891
By email: helpdesk@missouristate.edu
By web and Live Chat: http://helpdesk.missouristate.edu
In person: Visit any of the Computer Services Open-Access Labs in Cheek 150, Library 200, Strong 107, and Glass 229

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Reminder: Blackboard 8.0 will be taken out of service on January 31, 2012

Posted on by Brenda Burrell

Missouri State University upgraded to Blackboard Learn 9.1 on Saturday, May 21, 2011. Faculty members can log in to Blackboard 8.0 to access previous course content until January 31, 2012. If you desire to retain content from Blackboard 8.0 courses you taught previously, you must migrate content from your Blackboard 8.0 courses to Blackboard Learn 9.1. Instructions for completing this process can be found at:

Migrating Content from Blackboard 8.0 to Blackboard Learn 9.1

To make this transition as seamless as possible, Computer Services offers one-on-one assistance during “Blackboard Open Workshop” sessions scheduled every Friday from 1:30 – 5:00 pm in Library 205. No registration is necessary for these workshops; simply attend when convenient.

 

Questions? Contact the Computer Services Help Desk:

By phone: 417-836-5891
By email: helpdesk@missouristate.edu
By web and Live Chat: http://helpdesk.missouristate.edu
In person: Visit any of the Computer Services Open-Access Labs in Cheek 150, Library 200, Strong 107, and Glass 229

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Respondus Webinars

Posted on by Brenda Burrell

Respondus will be hosting a webinar on using Respondus 4.0 next week. Please feel free to join in!

Webinar: Creating Content with Respondus 4.0 (45 minutes)
Wednesday, January 25th at 2 p.m. ET – Register
Thursday, January 26th at 4 p.m. ET – Register (Repeat Session)

This training will cover the following:

  • Overview of Respondus 4.0
  • Using the Import Wizard to bring in questions from other sources; includes formatting tips for Word files
  • Copying items from other Respondus files from the Edit Tab
  • Accessing publisher test banks through the Respondus Test Bank Network
  • Using the Retrieval Tab to reuse and/or edit assessments already in your LMS
  • Q&A
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Did You Know? Free Respondus Test Banks for Respondus 4.0 and StudyMate

Posted on by Brenda Burrell

Did You Know?Missouri State University has a campus-wide license of both Respondus 4.0 and StudyMate. As part of this campus-wide license, you can search the Respondus Test Bank Network and request publisher test banks for the textbooks adopted for your courses. Over 25 publishers participate in the Respondus Test Bank Network.

The test banks are free and are already formatted for use with Respondus and StudyMate. This format of the test banks can save hours of prep time creating exams and learning activities for your courses.

Getting Started with the Respondus Test Bank Network.

  1. Visit www.respondus.com/tbn  to watch an introductory video (StudyMate Author users: visit http://www.respondus.com/products/demos-sm.shtml for screenshots specific to that application).
  2. Search for your test bank at www.respondus.com/testbank/search.php.
  3. Submit the online request form to receive the access code from the publisher within 5 business days.
  4. Register the test bank directly within your Respondus & StudyMate applications.

Questions? Contact the Computer Services Help Desk:

By phone: 417-836-5891
By email: helpdesk@missouristate.edu
By web and Live Chat: http://helpdesk.missouristate.edu
In person: Visit any of the Computer Services Open-Access Labs in Cheek 150, Library 200, Strong 107, and Glass 229

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UPDATED: Blackboard Maintenance Update

Posted on by Brenda Burrell

The scheduled maintenance for Blackboard went as planned yesterday; however, some faculty have reported that certain tools are no longer appearing in the Build Content menus of their Blackboard courses. Computer Services is aware of the problem and is working on a solution. Meanwhile, you can restore these tools manually as follows:

1. In your course’s Control Panel, select Customization and then Tool Availability.

2. Check the boxes next to the tools you wish to see in the menus.

3. Click Submit.

Questions? Contact the Computer Services Help Desk:

By phone: 417-836-5891
By email: helpdesk@missouristate.edu
By web and Live Chat: http://helpdesk.missouristate.edu
In person: Visit any of the Computer Services Open-Access Labs in Cheek 150, Library 200, Strong 107, and Glass 229

[UPDATE 8:55 am on 1/9/12] – The tools on the Build Content menus have been re-enabled. Please contact the Help Desk if you continue to see tools missing from the course menus. Thank you!

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Blackboard will be impacted by scheduled systems outage on Jan 7, 2012

Posted on by Brenda Burrell
In order to provide the highest level of service to the campus community, the computing and networking systems maintained by Computer Services require occasional downtime. On Saturday, January 7, from 7:00AM until 7:00PM, several of the University computer systems will be offline for system updates and unavailable for use. Some services may be available during part of the scheduled downtime, but service may be interrupted during this time period without notice.  Departments and users are encouraged to plan accordingly and not to be dependent on the services during the scheduled outage.

 

Questions? Contact the Computer Services Help Desk:
By phone: 417-836-5891
By email: helpdesk@missouristate.edu
By web and Live Chat: http://helpdesk.missouristate.edu
In person: Visit any of the Computer Services Open-Access Labs in Cheek 150, Library 200, Strong 107, and Glass 229
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SafeAssign Performance Update

Posted on by Brenda Burrell

From Blackboard:

SafeAssign continues to experience long delays as a result of paper submission volume. The expected turnaround time for papers submitted is still estimated at 3-5 days from the time of submission. The processing and accuracy of the plagiarism detection remains normal, but the high volume of submissions has impacted paper turnaround time. Given projections from historical usage, we expect the significant delays to decrease near the end of next week as the semester closes.

Additionally, we are working to identify papers that have encountered processing problems and plan to reprocess those papers on Monday, December 19 when we expect the submission rate to slow. We ask that you do not resubmit papers at this time as it will not improve the turnaround time.

We thank you for your patience, and please contact Blackboard Learn Client Support if you have any questions.

Questions? Contact the Computer Services Help Desk:

By phone: 417-836-5891
By email: helpdesk@missouristate.edu
By web and Live Chat: http://helpdesk.missouristate.edu
In person: Visit any of the Computer Services Open-Access Labs in Cheek 150, Library 200, Strong 107, and Glass 229

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Blackboard Learn 9.1 Spring 2012 Training Workshop Schedule Now Available!

Posted on by Brenda Burrell

Spring 2012 Blackboard Learn 9.1 training workshops are now available for registration! More information about the training courses can be found at http://helpdesk.missouristate.edu/blackboard/training.

To register, go to http://my.missouristate.edu, click the Profile tab, and find the Professional Development channel. Click the My Learning Connection link; this will open My Learning Connection in a new window where you can search for and register for classes (PDF file).

Have questions about the training classes, or about which is right for you? Contact Computer Services Training and Documentation by email at CSVTraining@MissouriState.edu or by phone at 417-836-6056.

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SafeAssign Performance Update and Maintenance Scheduled for December 27, 2011

Posted on by Brenda Burrell

SAFEASSIGN PERFORMANCE UPDATE:

SafeAssign is experiencing regular delays due to load on the system. In one sense, the cause of these delays is quite simple: the rate of papers being submitted exceeding the speed with which SafeAssign can process papers. Submissions go into a queue, and are processed in a first-in, first-out order. When the submissions are entering the queue faster than they are processed, a backlog builds up. Normally, SafeAssign catches up on that backlog when the submission rate drops below the processing rate. However, because of record high usage we’ve been pretty consistently running over capacity 24 hours a day for several weeks now (except for the US Thanksgiving weekend). So the system never fully has the time to catch up, resulting in turnaround times of 12-24 hours in many instances.

Given projections from historical usage, the significant delays of 12-24 hours or more will continue through the first week of December and then rapidly ease off in mid-December as the semester closes. Clients should expect that they will not see any significant improvement in turnaround times before mid-December. Please do not re-submit papers that have not received a matching report to prevent creating an even larger backlog.

From a development perspective, the current focus on SafeAssign is scalability and improving turnaround time of submissions. We hope to be able to deploy further improvements in this area early next year.

SAFEASSIGN MAINTENANCE UPDATE:

The SafeAssign service will be unavailable on Tuesday December 27, 2011 from 9:00 AM US Eastern (GMT-5) until Tuesday December 27, 2011 at 3:00 PM US Eastern (GMT-5). SafeAssign is being taken offline for a maintenance upgrade. Upon completion of this upgrade, the RSS feed will be updated to indicate SafeAssign is back online and available.

This maintenance upgrade will improve hardware failover and upgrade the software. In conjunction with version 2.4.11 of the SafeAssign Building Block to be released at the same time, this software upgrade will include several maintenance fixes, including:

  • SafeAssign now displays submissions for courses that have larger rosters and SafeAssignments without significant delay. GMNIBB- 163
  • SafeAssign now allows downloading of SafeAssignments that contain the forward slash (/) character in the titled. GMNIBB-168
  • The correct Feedback file is attached on the SafeAssignment grade. GMNI-249

During this outage SafeAssign will be unavailable. End-users will not be able to submit papers through SafeAssign during the planned downtime and will receive an error message if they attempt to do so. SafeAssign Originality Reports will not be available to Instructors or Students during the planned downtime, nor will Instructors be able to access SafeAssign DirectSubmit. Please make end-users aware of these limitations. Use of SafeAssign can continue as normal after the planned downtime are complete.

 

Questions? Contact the Computer Services Help Desk:

By phone: 417-836-5891
By email: helpdesk@missouristate.edu
By web and Live Chat: http://helpdesk.missouristate.edu
In person: Visit any of the Computer Services Open-Access Labs in Cheek 150, Library 200, Strong 107, and Glass 229

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How to paste from Microsoft Word to Blackboard Learn 9.1

Posted on by Brenda Burrell

We’ve released a new feature in the rich text editor for Blackboard Learn 9.1 at Missouri State University – copy from Microsoft Word!

To copy from a Microsoft Word document:

1. Add a content item to Blackboard Learn 9.1 (see more details).

2. In the rich text editor, click the “Add Mashup” icon and choose “Paste from Word”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. A popup window will open. Select and copy your content from your Word document.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Press CTRL + V (Windows) or CMD + V (Mac) to paste into Blackboard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Edit the content in the rich text editor as usual. When finished, click Submit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: Content copied from Word 2010 seems to retain formatting a little bit better than from Word 2007; both versions are, however, fully supported.

Questions? Contact the Computer Services Help Desk:

By phone: 417-836-5891
By email: helpdesk@missouristate.edu
By web and Live Chat: http://helpdesk.missouristate.edu
In person: Visit any of the Computer Services Open-Access Labs in Cheek 150, Library 200, Strong 107, and Glass 229

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