ucc staff guide to#blackboard - university college cork · · 2017-11-23ucc staff guide to...

UCC Staff Guide to Blackboard

C. Fennell, OVPTL | December 2014 1




Table of Contents 1. Blackboard Basics ..................................................................................... 3

Logging in to Blackboard .............................................................................. 3 Accessing a Module Site .............................................................................. 4 Ensuring Editing is On/Off ............................................................................ 4 Making a Module Site Available to Students ................................................ 5 Giving Access to Other Instructors ............................................................... 6 Checking what the Students See. ................................................................ 7

2. Updating the Menu ..................................................................................... 8 How to add an item to the menu .................................................................. 8 Removing an Item from the Menu ................................................................ 9 Renaming an Item from the Menu ................................................................ 9 Items to note in the Menu ............................................................................. 9

3. Updating the look and feel of your Module Site. ................................... 10 Changing the Module Structure, Entry Point or Colours ............................ 10

4. Working with Content .............................................................................. 13 Adding Content ........................................................................................... 13 Deleting Content ......................................................................................... 15 Moving/Copying Content ............................................................................ 15 Making Content Visible/Available to Students ............................................ 16 Tracking Student Usage of Content ........................................................... 16 Checking Student Usage of Content .......................................................... 17 Enabling Review Status ............................................................................. 18 Adaptive Release: Making Content Available Based on Certain Criteria ... 19

5. Getting to know the Blackboard Tools .................................................. 22 Adding a Tool Link to the Menu .................................................................. 24 How to add an item to the menu ................................................................ 24 Communication: Creating an Announcement ............................................. 25 Communication: Creating a Calendar Event .............................................. 26 Communication: Sending Emails ............................................................... 27 Communication: Setting Tasks ................................................................... 27 Collaboration: Using Discussion Boards/Blogs/Journals/Wikis .................. 28 Collaboration: Using the Groups Function ................................................. 29

6. Using Blackboard for Assessment ........................................................ 31 Setting up Electronic Assignment Submission with Blackboard ................. 31 Setting up Electronic Assignment Submission with Turnitin ....................... 31 Downloading Submitted Assignments with Blackboard ............................. 32 Viewing a Submitted Assignment with Turnitin .......................................... 33 Bulk Download Assignments a Turnitin Submission Box. .......................... 33 Creating Tests & Surveys ........................................................................... 34 Managing Grades through the Grade Centre ............................................. 38 Adding Columns to the Grade Centre ........................................................ 39 Exporting Grades from Grade Centre to Excel (to potentially be used to import to DMIS). ......................................................................................... 40

7. Where to Get More Information on Blackboard & Turnitin: ................. 41



1. Blackboard Basics

Logging in to Blackboard

1) On your computer open any web browser. (for example Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome).

2) In the address bar type https://blackboard.ucc.ie

3) Select staff logon.

4) Enter you username and password and click Login. Note: If you do not have a username or password you can request one from the Learning Technologies Unit by emailing [email protected]



Accessing a Module Site

1) Once logged in to Blackboard, you will see a box entitled My Courses, this lists of the module sites that you have access to.

2) Click on the title of the module you wish to view.

3) This brings you to the module site which will look something like the below.

Ensuring Editing is On/Off In order to make any of changes to a site, you should ensure Edit Mode is on. In the top right hand corner there is an edit mode toggle.

1) Click to turn it on/off.

2) Having Edit Mode off allows you to see what students see.



Making a Module Site Available to Students It is the responsibility of the module co-ordinator to ensure that the module site and content are visible to students. To make a course/module available to students you should do the following:

1) to the Module Site (as explained in previous section).

2) Go to the Control Panel (in the bottom left).

3) Select Customisation, a menu will open

then select Properties.

4) Approximately, halfway down the page there is an option to set course availability. Set the option to Yes to make the course available to students. (The remaining options on this page should be left as default).



Giving Access to Other Instructors Students will be enrolled automatically in Blackboard based on their registration. However in some cases you may wish to give access to another colleague. To do this

1) Go to the Module Site (as explained in previous section).

2) Go to the Control Panel (in the bottom left).

3) Select Users and Groups and choose Users.

4) Hover over Enrol User (top left) and select Find Users to Enrol.

5) Type the username in the box (or select browse if you do not know it).

6) Assign the role needed to the user (e.g. student/instructor etc..). What the person can see/edit on the site will depend on this role.

7) Click Submit.



Checking what the Students See. At times you may need to check what the students see. (For example an instructor might add an assignment on Blackboard but theu have kept it unavailable as they do not want students to see it for another few weeks.) You can check what students see by

1) Clicking on the icon (top right corner). Or

2) Set edit mode to off by clicking on it.



2. Updating the Menu You have the option to customise certain aspects of your Blackboard site. The first part you can customize is the navigation menu on the left hand side.

How to add an item to the menu

1) Hover over the + (top left).

2) Select Content Area.

3) Type a name for the content area.

4) Make it available for users to see (or not if you wish to keep the area

hidden) by making sure the box is ticked (unticked).

5) Click Submit.

6) The new menu item will appear at the bottom of the menu, you can then drag it to where you would like it to be.

Best Practice Tip: Remove links that have no content



Removing an Item from the Menu

1) Click the dropdown arrow next to the menu item you wish to remove. 2) Click Hide Link (will hide link from students and keep content) or

Delete (will remove link and delete content).

Renaming an Item from the Menu

1) Click the dropdown arrow next to the menu item you wish to remove.

2) Click Rename Link.

3) Type the new name in the box.

4) Click on the green tick.

Items to note in the Menu 1) If a menu item has an empty gray box next

to it, this means there is no content on that page.

2) If a menu item has box with a line through it, this means it is not available to students.



3. Updating the look and feel of your Module Site.

Changing the Module Structure, Entry Point or Colours

1) In the bottom left hand corner there is a Control Panel. Click on Customisation.

2) Once the Customisation menu has opened. Click on Teaching Style. You are then brought to a page of options. Where you can choose to change any of the following:

Course Structure à Allows you to group in content in different ways. For example: you can group content by week, activity type etc.. You do not have to edit the structure. To update it, click the option on the left which best suits your needs.

Course Entry Point à This is the page that students will see when they first login. To updateit, change the dropdown menu to the page you wish to have as the entry point

Best Practice Tip: If managing multiple modules on the same programme, ensure that

there look and feel are the same across the programme.



Course Theme à Course themes are templates for the course background. Simply click the theme you wish to use. Please note: it is strongly recommended that you use the Vista theme.

Course Menu Style à This allows you change the colour of the menu background and font. It is recommended that you ensure there is contrast between font and background. (ie: a pale background should have dark font and vice versa). Note: If you wish to use white as a font or background colour you should enter ffffff as the colour value.

Finally, in this section you have the option to change menu items to text or buttons. Text is strongly recommended.

Best Practice Tip: Set the course entry point to an announcements page.

Best Practice Tips: Avoid using very bright colours for font/ menu/themes.

Use vista as a theme and text for menu items.



Default Content View à This allows you to dictate whether to have the default Blackboard icons on the page. You have three choices: icon/text /icon and text). Select the preferred option.

Banner à This option allows you to add a banner image to the home page of your course. To do this you browse to the image on your PC and select it. It is recommended to avoid using banners.

3) Finally, once you have set all the options as desired click Submit in the bottom left hand corner of the page.

Best Practice Tip: Use the Text only or Icon and Text option. (i.e.: do not use the Icon only

option.)



4. Working with Content

It is possible to add a lot of different types of content/files to Blackboard. No matter what the type of content, the basic steps are the same. They are as follows:

Adding Content

1) Go to the page where you wish to add the content by clicking on that menu item.

2) Hover over the Build Content Menu.

3) Click on the type of content you wish to add. For example: Item, video… etc..

4) Depending on what type of content you choose you will given different

options. Once you have chosen your options. Click Submit

A brief explanation of all the different types of content is given below.

Best Practice Tip: Plan the structure of your module site. For example: relevant items

should be grouped.



Content Type Description Item Allows you to add text/image or multimedia File Allows you to add documents that can be downloaded Audio Allows you to add audio files (they should be no larger than

5MB). Accepted formats include MP3, M4A, AAC and WMA Image Allows you to add images. Accepted formats include GIF,

JPG, JPEG, BMP, PNG, and TIF. Video • Allows you to add videos. Accepted formats include MOV,

WMV, MPEG-4/.MP4, SWF, FLV, RM Web Link Allows you to add a link to an external website Learning Module

Allows you to create a package of related content that can include a table of contents and that can be followed sequentially.

Lesson Plan A special content type that combines information about the lesson itself with the curriculum resources used to teach it.

Syllabus Enables you to attach an existing syllabus file or build a course syllabus by walking through a series of steps

Course Link Allows you to create shortcut to an item, tool, or area in a course.

Content Package (SCORM)

Allows you to add a package from another application that meets SCORM standards. For example, you can add clickable packages made from Storyline or Captivate.

Content Folder

A course area that contains content items. Folders allow content to be structured with a hierarchy or categories.

Module Page A page containing dynamic personalized content modules that help users keep track of tasks, tests, assignments, and new content created in the course.

Blank Page The blank page tool allows you to include files, images, and text as a link in a course area. Blank pages are different to items as they do not include a description.

Flickr Photo Link to a site for viewing and sharing photographic images

Slideshare presentation

Link to a site for viewing and sharing PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, or Adobe PDF Portfolios

You Tube Video

Link to a site for viewing and sharing online videos



Deleting Content

1) Navigate to the piece of content, you wish to delete.

2) Hover over the name of the content and a small grey arrow appears to the right of the name.

3) Click on the arrow and menu will appear

4) Click on Delete

5) You will be asked for confirmation, Click OK.

Moving/Copying Content



3) Click on the arrow and menu will appear.

4) Click on Move/Copy.

5) You will be asked to confirm the destination for the content. Choose the Destination course from the dropdown and select the Destination Folder by browsing to it.

6) Click Submit.



Making Content Visible/Available to Students

For any piece of content it is possible to keep decide whether it is to be available to students. To do this:

1) When adding any piece of content you will be given a page of options. (Note: If the content already exists you can access the options by hovering over the content name à click on the dropdown arrow that appears à click on Edit).

2) One of the options is to Permit Users to View this Content. To ensure the item is available make sure the Yes option is selected.

3) You can also set the availability based on dates. This means that you can tell Blackboard to only show the content for 1 day, 1 hour etc…. (For example: this could be useful for setting up a test). To do this simply fill in the dates in the below boxes.

Tracking Student Usage of Content For any piece of content it is possible to keep track of the number of times it is viewed. To do this, you need to ensure that tracking is enabled.

1) When adding any piece of content you will be given a page of options. (Note: If the content already exists you can access the option by hovering over the content name à click on the dropdown arrow that appears à click on either Edit or Statistics Tracking (On/Off).

2) One of the options is to Track Number of Views. To ensure tracking is on simply select the Yes option.

Best Practice Tip: Only make relevant content available/visible to students.



Checking Student Usage of Content Once you have tracking switch on you can run a report at any time that shows the number of views. To do this




4) Click on View Statistics Report.

5) You are brought to a new page, hover over the name of the report and a small grey arrow will appear to the right of the name.

6) Click on the arrow.

7) Click on Run.

8) You are given a page of options (for example what dates/users you wish the report to be about). Choose the appropriate options and click submit.



Enabling Review Status Review Status allows a student to mark something off as reviewed. The advantages of this are that:

• The instructor can view how many students have reviewed the material • Other content can be released based on what the student has

reviewed. For example: you may wish to make lesson 2 available once they have read lesson 1.

The disadvantage of this is that you are dependent on the student to change the status to reviewed. To switch review status on:

1) Navigate to the piece of content where you wish to enable reviewing.



4) Click on Set Review Status.

5) You will be shown a page with a review status toggle. Change the status to enabled and click submit.

The student will see the below toggle on the content, they should click on it to mark it as reviewed.



Adaptive Release: Making Content Available Based on Certain Criteria

A very powerful feature of Blackboard is adaptive release. This allows you to only release pieces of content if certain criteria are met. (For example: you may wish to only release lesson 2 if the student has submitted the assignment for lesson 1). The advantage of this type of functionality is that it allows students to work through the material at their own pace, while still being guided. To implement adaptive release on a piece of content



3) Click on the arrow and menu will appear

4) Click on Adaptive Release

5) You are given a page of options. You can limit the release of the content in 4 ways:

Date à Allows you to release content based on certain date. For example: you may wish to make the content available from the 12th March until the 15th March. To do this simply input the dates and times accordingly.

Best Practice Tip: Use adaptive release to only release materials relevant to the

individual student.



Membership à Allows you to release content based on the specific user(s). For example: you can set the content to only be visible to j.bloggs or group 1 (if you have groups setup – see section on using groups function for more on this). To do this enter the username(s) of the people who should see the content (or if it is a group, select the group from the left hand box and move it to the right box below).

Gradesà Allows you to release content based on what grades students have received in an test/assignment. For example: you may wish to make the advanced material available to those who received greater than 60%. To do this, choose the grade center column from the dropdown (Below is an MCQ) and set the criteria accordingly.



Review Status à Allows you to release content based on whether a student has reviewed another piece of content. For example: you may wish to make lesson 2 available once they have read lesson 1. To do this simply select the piece of content that should have been reviewed from the dropdown. Note: For this option, the student there are prerequisites.

1) Review Status must be turned on for the content (see previous instructions for how to do this).

2) The student must set the content to reviewed status (meaning that you are reliant on a student to update the content as read).

6) Once you have set all the release criteria click submit.



5. Getting to know the Blackboard Tools

There are a number of different tools available in Blackboard. The tools along with a short description are listed on the following page.

Best Practice Tip: Tools should be chosen based on the learning outcomes that are to be

achieved.



Tool What it does Achievements Allows you to set up badges/achievements that students can

attain by completing certain tasks. For example: you can create an achievement completing section 1.

Announcements Allows you post announcements Blogs Allows you to create a blog where students can share their

thoughts. Calendar • Allows you to track important dates (example: assignment

deadline). The date is then highlighted to the student. Campus Pack Collaboration

• This is a Blackboard extension, it gives an alternative way to create blogs, discussion boards, journals, podcasts and wikis.

Contacts Allows you to create a page showing contact details of relevant staff.

Course messages

Allows you to create and send messages to course members. (it is similar to send email tool below).

Discussion Board

Allows you to create online discussions.

Glossary Allows you to create a page with a list of terms and definitions. (It is also possible to upload a list of terms)

Groups Allows you to create groups where students can work together.

Journals Allows you to create journals where students can share their thoughts. The main difference with a blog is that the journal is private to the student and instructor (i.e. other students cant see it).

My Grades Allows student to access results of any activities submitted through Blackboard

Panopto Focus Content

This tool allows you to include recordings made using the Panopto tool. Panopto is a lecture capture software. There is a separate user guide that covers its use.

Roster Allows you to view a list of users enrolled on the course. Rubrics Allows you to create a grading rubric/grading scheme. Send Email Allows you to send emails to different sets of users (for

example: send an email to all instructors). Tasks Allows you to create a task list that students can see and

work through. Tests, Surveys & Pools

Allows you to create tests and surveys. (These are covered in more detail in the assessment section).

Wikis Allows you to create wikis through which students can collaborate.



Adding a Tool Link to the Menu Sometimes you may wish to have access to one of the tools listed in the menu. To add the tool:

How to add an item to the menu

1) Hover over the + (top left).

2) Select Tool Link

3) Type a name for the tool

4) Select the type of tool to be added

5) Make it available for users to see (or not if you wish to keep the area

hidden) by making sure the box is ticked (unticked).

6) Click Submit. The new menu item will appear at the bottom of the menu, you can then drag it to where you would like it to be in the menu.

Best Practice Tip: Only add tools to the menu if students need them. (Instructors can

access all tools whether they are in the menu or not)



Communication: Creating an Announcement

1) Go to the Announcements page (if you do not have one see previous section on adding a tool link to menu).

2) Click on Create Announcement

3) You are brought to a page of options. Type in a subject and the body of the announcement.

4) Select if the announcement is to be date restricted (for example

should only be available until tomorrow.)

5) Choose whether the announcement should be emailed to all students.

6) Click submit.

Best Practice Tip: Always ensure announcements stay relevant and remove out of date

announcements. (This can be done by setting date restrictions).



Communication: Creating a Calendar Event

1) Go to the Calendar page (if you do not have one see previous section on adding a tool link to menu).

2) In the top right hand corner of the calendar, Click on the plus sign

3) A box will appear asking you for details of the event. Fill in the details accordingly and click save.

4) The following entry appears in the calendar



Communication: Sending Emails

1) Go to the Send Email page (if you do not have one see previous section on adding a tool link to menu).

2) Select the group of users you wish to send the email to

3) Type the subject and email into the form

that appears.

4) Click Submit.

Communication: Setting Tasks

1) Go to the Tasks page (if you do not have one see previous section on

adding a tool link to menu).

2) Click on Create Tasks. On the page that appears give the task a name, description, due date and priority.

3) As an instructor it is possible to view

which students have completed a task by clicking on the name of the task.

4) It is also possible to display the tasks

to students on a module called ‘My Tasks’ on a home page.

Best Practice Tip: Use a tasks to highlight to students what is expected of them.

Best Practice Tip: Communicate to students via email and announcements so that there

is a record of all communications made.



Collaboration: Using Discussion Boards/Blogs/Journals/Wikis Discussion Boards/Blogs/Journals and Wikis are all tools that enable collaboration in Blackboard. The steps to set them up are similar for all:

1) Go to the Discussion Boards/Blogs/Journals/Wikis page (if you do

not have one see previous section on adding a tool link to menu).

2) Click on Create Forum/Blog/Journal/Wiki. On the page that appears fill in the relevant options required.



Perhaps what is more difficult with these tools is to decide which is the most appropriate for the task in question. The below table highlights some of the differences between them.

Collaboration: Using the Groups Function If students are expected to work in groups during a module, Blackboard’s groups tool can be useful function for collaboration. To implement it

1) Go to the Control Panel (bottom left hand corner). Click Users and Groups.

2) Click Groups.

3) Click Create [Group Type]. You will see that there are two types of groups the Single Group and Group Set:

Figure 1: Taken From 'Getting Started with Blackboard Learn Interactive Tools' Blackboard Inc.(2012)



Single Groups à allow you to create individual groups. Group Sets à allow you to bulk-create two or more similar groups. Each group will automatically have a number appended to the end of its name, saving you time and effort. Each of these group types have their own sub-types:

• Self-Enroll Groups à are groups which students may optionally enrol themselves in. This might be used to sign students up for optional tutorials or exam revision classes.

• Manual Enroll Groups à are groups in which the instructor must

manually decide which students go in which group.

• Random Enroll Groupsà are only available for Group Sets. These groups randomly enroll students to each group instance, increasing efficiency and removing any potential bias. However, the instructor can always override these random enrollments and move students to another group.

Note: It is possible to enroll students in more than one group.

4) Once you have chosen the type of group/group set you wish to create. You will be given a page of options. You will need to set the Group Name, Description and tool availability (for example the group can be given its own blog/wiki etc) and depending on the type of enrolment you may also have to select which users have access to the group.

5) Once the options have been added. Click Submit.

Best Practice Tip: Use adaptive release to only release materials relevant to a group.



6. Using Blackboard for Assessment Please note: Blackboard currently offers two types of assignment submission setups. They are:

• The Blackboard assignment function. • The Turnitin assignment function. (Turnitin is an addon for Blackboard,

it has a plagiarism checker and also allows for online correction.) The choice of which to setup is very much down to the individual lecturer and the needs of the course. Setup for both versions is explained briefly here.

Setting up Electronic Assignment Submission with Blackboard

1) Go to the content area where you want the submission box is to be.

2) Hover over Assessments.

3) Select Assignment.

4) Set the details of the assignment. (This includes items such as name, attachments, due dates, grading options and availbility).

5) Click submit.

Once the assignment is setup and made available, students will see a submission box like the below.

Setting up Electronic Assignment Submission with Turnitin

1) Go to the content area where you want the submission box is to be.

2) Hover over Assessments

3) Select Turnitin Direct Assignment.

4) Set the details of the assignment.

5) Click submit.



Downloading Submitted Assignments with Blackboard

1) Go to Control Panel (on the left hand side), click on Grade Centre, and then on Assignments.

2) The Grade Centre – Assignments will then open and will display a list of the student names, as well as the various Assignments submitted. When a student successfully uploads an assignment, an exclamation mark appears next to that specific assignment.

3) To access the assignments, click

on the down-arrow at the top of the relevant Assignment column.

4) A menu appears. Click on Assignment File Download.

5) A new page opens listing the students. (If you have more then 25 students you may need to click the show all button in the bottom left).

6) Tick the box next to the student assignments that are to be downloaded. (To download all, tick the box at the top).

7) Click Submit.

8) On the next screen, click on the blue writing that says Download Assignments now.

9) A zipped folder containing the assignments will then be downloaded

to your computer.



Viewing a Submitted Assignment with Turnitin

6) Go to the assignment submission box (of the assignment you wish to view).

7) Click View Assignment

8) Click Submissions Inbox, you will see a list of students and submitted assignments.

9) Click on the name of the assignment you wish to see, this will open the

assignment in the Turnitin GradeMark Window. (Further instructions on using Grade Mark/Turnitin for correction are available separately).

Bulk Download Assignments a Turnitin Submission Box.

1) Go to the assignment submission box (of the assignment you wish to view).

2) Click View Assignment

3) In the right of the Assignment Page you will see 3 icons (Word, PDF, Excel). Click on the preferred format.

4) You may get a window

such as the one of the right. If so then click the part that says ‘Click here to begin download’.

5) A zipped folder containing

all the assignments will then be downloaded to you computer.



Creating Tests & Surveys One of the biggest advantages of creating tests and surveys in Blackboard is that they can usually (depending on the question type) can be corrected automatically. It is possible to create a number of different types of tests and surveys in Blackboard. To create a test/survey:

1) On the Control Panel, expand the Course

Tools section.

2) Select Tests, Surveys, and Pools.

3) On the Tests, Surveys, and Pools page, select Tests.

4) On the Tests page, click Build Test.

5) On the Test Information page, type a name, and optional description and instructions.

6) Click Submit.

7) On the Test Canvas, point to Create Question on the action bar to access the drop-down list.



8) Select a question type.

Note: An explanation of the different types is given on the next page.

9) On the Create/Edit page, provide the necessary

information to create a question.

10) Click Submit.

11) On the Test Canvas, you can change a question's point value (on right hand side of question).

12) Click a question's

current point value.

13) In the Update Points pop-up box, edit the points.

14) Click Submit.

Repeat Step 7 through Step 11 to add more questions. Click OK. The test is added to the list on the Tests page and is ready to deploy in a content area. (Note: Surveys are created in much the same way).



Question Types Type Description Calculated Formula

Calculated Formula questions present students with a question that requires them to make a calculation and respond with a numeric answer. The numbers in the question change with each user and are pulled from a range that you set. The correct answer is a specific value or a range of values. You may grant partial credit for answers falling within a range. Calculated Formula questions are graded automatically.

Calculated Numeric

With Calculated Numeric questions, students are presented with a question that requires a numeric answer. The question does not need to be a mathematical formula. You can provide a text question that requires a numeric answer. It resembles a Fill in the Blank question in which the correct answer is a number.

Either/Or In addition to True/False questions, Blackboard lets you create Either/Or questions in your online assessments. You can ask questions where the answers are Yes or No, Agree or Disagree, or even Right or Wrong.10

Essay Essay questions require students to type an answer in a text box. You can type directly in the text box or paste a question from another application, such as a simple text editor like Notepad or TextEdit.

File Response

You can have your students submit files in response to a question. Students will see an “Attach Local File” box and Browse button when they answer the question. This type of question is corrected manually.

Fill in Multiple Blanks

Multiple fill in the blank responses can be inserted into a sentence or paragraph. Separate answer sets are defined for each blank.

Fill in the Blank

Fill in the Blank questions consist of a phrase, sentence, or paragraph with a blank space indicating where the student should provide the missing word or words. Use Fill in Multiple Blanks to create a question with multiple answers. Answers are scored based on whether the student answer matches the correct answers you provide. You can require student answers to match exactly, contain part of the correct answer, or match a pattern that you specify. You choose whether or not the answer is case sensitive.

Hot Spot Students indicate the answer by marking a specific point on an image. A range of pixel coordinates is used to define the correct answer. Instructors click and drag the mouse over the



image to create a rectangle over the correct answer.

Jumbled Sentence

Students are shown a sentence with a few parts of the sentence as variables. They select the proper answer for each variable from dropdown lists to assemble the sentence. Only one set of answers is used for all of the drop-down lists.

Matching Matching questions allow students to pair items in one column to items in another column. You may include a different numbers of questions and answers in a matching question. For example, the question may include a list of animals and a list of food they eat (herbivore, carnivore, omnivore). Students would match each animal with their diet.

Multiple Answer

Multiple answer questions allow students to choose more than one answer. Use this type of question when more than one answer is correct. For example, in the medical field, this type of question could be used to select symptoms associated with a medical condition.

Multiple Choice

Multiple choice questions allow students several choices with only one correct answer.

Opinion Scale/Likert

Questions which allow the user to submit strongly agree, disagree, strongly disagree, etc., answers. This question type is designed to measure attitudes or reactions. These questions are most suitable for use in surveys.

Ordering Ordering questions require students to provide an answer by selecting the correct order of a series of items. For example, you can give students a list of historical events and ask them to place these events in chronological order. Students are granted partial marks for ordering questions if they answer part of the question correctly. For example, if the question is worth eight points and the student gives the correct order for half of the items, they will receive four points.

Quiz Bowl Create questions where the student is given the answer and is asked to supply the question. The answer must include a phrase and a question word, such as who, what, or where to be marked as correct.

Short Answer

Similar to essay questions. The length of the answer can be limited to a specified number of rows in the text box. The number of rows is meant as a guideline. Blackboard does not impose an absolute limit on answer length.

True/False True/False questions allow students to choose either true or false in response to a statement question. True and false answer options are limited to the words True and False.



Managing Grades through the Grade Centre The Grade Centre in Blackboard is like a spreadsheet. Each row is automatically populated with student names (by default in alphabetical order by surname), and each column represents information for an assessment item such as a test, assignment, mid-semester exam, graded journal entry, graded discussion board entry etc. Some columns are created automatically, as you create assignments or tests, but you can also add your own columns (for example, for returning provisional grades) and create calculated columns to combine marks according to some formula. Note about Grade Centre: The Grade Centre is a powerful tool and this manual only covers the basics. There are more resources available about the Grade Centre on the Blackboard Website. To go to the Grade Centre:

1) Go to Control Panel

2) Click on the Grade Centre dropdown

3) Click on Full Grade Centre.

The Full Grade Center displays all columns and rows in the Grade Center and is the default view of the Grade Center.



Adding Columns to the Grade Centre Sometimes you may wish to change the columns in the grade centre. For example you might like to create a column for a presentation that was done in class or you might like to create a total column (this is a calculated column). To add/remove a column:

1) In the Full Grade Centre, Click on Create Column/Calculated Column. (If it is a calculated column you will need to select what type i.e. total/average etc..).

2) Fill in the details for the column, for example column name/ whether it will be a percentage etc, whether students can see it) and click submit.



Exporting Grades from Grade Centre to Excel (to potentially be used to import to DMIS).

1) To export the Grade Centre, go to Full Grade Centre and click on Work Offline.

2) Click on Download

3) You will be presented with the Download Grades screen., where you choose the options needed.

4) Click Submit at the bottom of the screen.

5) Click Download.

6) A file with a name such as gc_coursename_fullgc_year_month_day_time will appear in your downloads.



7. Where to Get More Information on Blackboard & Turnitin: If you have specific questions/comments:

• Should you have specific questions/comments/suggestions on this document please contact [email protected]

• Should you have specific requests relating to the setting up of your module (such as getting access to a module) please contact [email protected]

Useful Websites:

• Blackboard: https://help.blackboard.com/en-us/Learn/9.1_2014_04/Instructor

• Turnitin: http://turnitin.com/en_us/support/help-center Useful Videos: The below links have multiple short (usually 2 - 4 mins) step-by-step videos on various functions in Blackboard and Turnitin. For example there are videos on how to create an online quiz or discussion board, how to mark an assignment electronically…etc..

• Blackboard: https://www.youtube.com/ playlist?list=PLontYaReEU1tzu1T5gfiX-JQA5nBc3isN

• Turnitin: http://turnitin.com/en_us/training/instructor-training

ucc staff guide to#blackboard - university college cork · · 2017-11-23ucc staff guide to...

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