Qualtrics recently added a series of features that you will see listed as you log into Qualtrics, along with links to instructions and tutorials. To review a few of those features, let’s start with the Mobile Compatibility Checker.  This checker allows you to optimize your survey to be viewed and taken on mobile devices.  Mobile Compatibility Checker is a feature that you turn on; then as you scroll through your survey Qualtrics, it will present the mobile checker icon in the left column of a survey question if tips are detected that will help your survey display better on a mobile device.  To turn this feature on:

1. Log into Qualtrics and go to Edit Survey
2. Open the Advanced Options drop-down menu located in the upper right of the screen.
3. Select “Toggle Mobile Compatibility Check”.
4. Scroll through your survey and look for the mobile checker icon displayed in the left margin of your questions.
5. When you see the orange icon with a small mobile screen inside of it; click the icon to view suggestions.

If you use questions with heat maps, Qualtrics has added a new option, the Multi-Click Heat Map, to let you determine how many clicks to allow on the map.  To explain further, heat map questions let you load an image as part of your question.  Survey participants then click on the image to indicate their answer to your question.  You could use this for a variety of purposes; identifying points on the human body, picking the most useful areas on a web page for usability studies, locating areas on a geographical map or perhaps identifying creative components in a painting. To use the new feature for the Multi-Click Heat Map question format, follow these steps:

1. Log into Qualtrics and go to Edit Survey.
2. Use the Create a New Item link to add a question.
3. Select Insert a new Heat Map item.
4. Select and upload a graphic to use for your question.
5. In the right tool bar, select the number of clicks you would like to allow on that image by increasing the number of clicks in that option.

If you have ever wanted to add the comparison of goals to your actual data results, Qualtrics has now added Goal Lines for Graphs. This feature lets you edit the survey results graphs to show your goal values in the Y-Axis against the actual survey results values. For example, you might want to show how many students accessed certain campus services in the past year against how many they indicated accessing this year in your current survey.  For research purposes, you could show the expected use of milk in a calcium study or the expected use of safety procedures against what is actually reported.  These graphs may be easily downloaded into reports for MS Word, Excel or PowerPoint.  To include Goal Lines for Graphs:

1. Log into Qualtrics and along the top bar; go to the tab called Reporting Beta.
2. Create a new report or open an existing report.
3. Add a bar, line or control graph to the question you want to graph.
4. Click Graph Options in the top menu, then click on Goal Line.
5. Set a value for the goal line based on your Y-Axis values.

To read about other new Qualtrics features such as adding multiple data sources to a word cloud, scheduling future downloads of data or grouping page items; click here. 

Instructors sometimes ask,  ”How can I create an assignment in Blackboard Learn that isn’t graded?”

It is possible to create a check mark in your Grade Center indicating a task is completed without assigning a grade value.  The trick is setting that part up after you have created the assignment.  To have an entry that looks like the image below in your Grade Center, you need to set up the assignment as normal, which requires you to enter some value in the Points Possible field.

After you have the assignment created, go to that column in your Grade Center.  Select Edit Column Information from the column header drop down menu.  As you scroll through your options, under Primary Display, you will notice an option for Complete/Incomplete.  You may select that option now and change your Points Possible to zero or another desired value.

Remember to click the Submit button to save your changes. You will now be able to click in the grade cell and add a check mark for students who have completed the assigned task.

Purdue’s Web Accessibility Committee recently published a new resource. It is designed to help faculty and staff author documents that are accessible to people with disabilities.

A wide variety of documents created by Purdue faculty and staff are uploaded into Blackboard or web pages. Each uploaded document — whether Microsoft Word, PDF, or another format — is required to be accessible to people with disabilities. Many, however, are unaware that authors can use simple methods to create more accessible documents. Tips for Creating Accessible Online Documents describes techniques to improve accessibility for Word, PowerPoint, Excel and PDF formats. The resource is an example of an accessible PDF. The free document is available to view or download on the Web Accessibility Committee website at: http://www.purdue.edu/webaccessibility/resources/index.html

Here are a few examples of accessibility techniques described for Microsoft Word:

Use Word 2010 Accessibility Checker

Word 2010 has a built-in tool that checks your document for accessibility problems. The Accessibility Checker makes it much easier to identify and repair accessibility issues. To use the tool, select File > Info > Check for Issues > Check Accessibility.

Headings

Use built-in Styles to identify Heading 1, Heading 2, etc. This provides structure that is used to navigate through the document when using assistive technology.

Lists

Use built-in features for creating bulleted and numbered lists. This provides navigational structure that is important to those using assistive technology.

Document authors are responsible for making their posted documents accessible to individuals with disabilities. With this new resource, authors have many simple methods they can use to improve accessibility within several common formats. After reviewing Tips for Creating Accessible Online Documents, feel free to contact me with your questions or suggestions for improving the document.

Writer: Dean Brusnighan, ITaP Assistive Technology Specialist

If you’re considering accepting homework via Blackboard Learn, this can be a benefit to both you and and your students.  You can reduce the amount of paper that you need to work with by accepting your assignments electronically, and your students can simply submit their homework to you when they’re finished and not have to worry about printing their work out.  You can also have full control of assignment submissions by turning off availability of the assignment to students when you choose.  However, there are a few things you should keep in mind if you choose to accept homework via Blackboard.

•Specify file format(s) you will accept as homework
Students for the most part may have programs like Microsoft Word where they can create their homework submission.  However, there may be students who choose to use alternative programs such as Apple’s iWork, OpenOffice, or Google Docs.  To avoid incompatibility with the programs you may have available, it is recommended that you clearly specify the file formats that are acceptable.  If you intend to make comments within the students’ homework submissions, you’ll need to make sure students submit work in a format you can open and edit (which may eliminate PDF as an acceptable format).

Most students will have access to Microsoft software, and the older Word format (.doc) should be accessible by most word processors.  Rich text format (.rtf) is available in most word processors and should be a permissible format for students who do not have Microsoft products.  If you specify word processed documents to be submitted in .doc or .rtf format, all students should be able to comply with this requirement.

•Do not use special characters in the name of your homework assignment
Blackboard Learn gives you the option to download all student assignment submissions at one time by clicking on the options menu button for the column in the Grade Center for the assignment.However, special characters in the name of your assignment can cause an error if you try to download all student files at one time.  Special characters include symbols such as:  @, $, %, &, and #.  It is advised to only use alphanumeric characters when entering the name of your assignment.

•Include specific instructions and files for your assignment within Blackboard
Including instructions for your assignment can help to reinforce the expectations that you have for your students’ work.  Instructions can be added to your assignment both as text within the assignment or attached as a separate document (or documents if necessary).  You can also attach special files (such as worksheets, document templates, etc) to the assignment as well.

To include instructions as text within your assignment, type your instructions into the  ”Instructions” text box.  If you have a separate file with the instructions of the assignment, or a file students must download to complete the assignment, in Assignment Files click “Browse My Computer” and upload the file(s) the students need from your computer.

•Control Student Access and Submissions to the Assignment
In Blackboard you can control student access and submissions to the assignment.  When setting up the assignment you will have options that you can specify for the availability and number of times a student can submit their assignment

In the Number of Attempts option, you can decide if a student can submit an assignment once, as many times as they want, or a number you set.  If you allow a single attempt, the student can only upload their assignment once.  In the other options, the student can upload their homework more than once and Blackboard retains all student submissions.

In the Limit Availability option, you can make the assignment available during a specific period of time.  You may elect to display the assignment for only a one week period, or allow students to access the assignment from the first day of the class until the day the assignment is due.  You can set a Display After date, a Display Until date, or both.  If you will accept student homework submissions up until the time your class starts on a specific date, you can set the Display Until date to that date and time.  After that date and time, the assignment will no longer display in the Content area to the student.

•What Students Should Do When Submitting Assignments
Students should take some responsibility in ensuring that their assignments upload correctly to Blackboard.  Students should do the following before submitting their work to Blackboard:

-Save the File.  Students should save their file in the file format specified one more time to ensure any changes they have made at the last minute are retained.

-Close the File.  If the file is open when being uploaded to Blackboard, the file may be corrupted.  This will prevent the file being opened correctly but it may not be apparent that the file is corrupted until it is opened for grading.

After the file is uploaded to Blackboard, the students should verify the file uploaded correctly.  Students will see a receipt screen stating the file was uploaded after they submit their work.  On that screen will be included a link to their file in Blackboard; students should click the link to see if the file opens correctly.  If the file opens successfully for the student, it should open for instructors as well.

•Provide an Alternative Submission Method if Homework Upload Fails
If a student attempts to submit their homework and their upload fails, giving a secondary option is recommended.  That could include sending the file by email, via FileLocker, or another means.  You can also clear a students’ homework attempt in Blackboard, or provide an additional submission attempt within the View Grade Details for that student’s upload.

•Using SafeAssign
SafeAssign is an option you can use if you want to add a plagiarism check to a student’s homework submission.  There are several limitations to SafeAssign though that a standard Assignment does not have.  First, in SafeAssign you cannot upload files for students to download; you can only include text instructions.  Also, SafeAssign only allows one student file to be uploaded where a standard assignment can allow students to upload 2, 3, or more files.

Using Blackboard to accept student homework submissions can reduce the amount of paper you have to handle and allow students to submit work when they complete the homework when they finish it – whether it be 3:00 in the afternoon or 3:00 in the morning.  It is important to keep the considerations above in mind though when using Blackboard to accept work from your students.  If you have questions about utilizing assignments in Blackboard, please contact us at tlt-consulting@purdue.edu.

Brett Creech
Educational Technologist

For faculty who are utilizing Blackboard Learn to either supplement an existing face-to-face class or who teach a class entirely online, one aspect that is easy to overlook is the look and feel of the class.  For faculty using Learn, not only should care be taken to determine what content will be made available to students, but also with how the material is presented.

Strange and Banning (2001) note, “It is clear that the campus physical environment is an important feature that influences students’ attraction to and satisfaction with a particular institution” (p. 12).  A lot of attention is paid to how a campus appears physically.  Should not the same care be shown when putting together a course in the campus’ virtual learning environment?

Course Site Aesthetics

When a course site is created in Blackboard, it is loaded with a default Purdue University template.  Changes can be made to the look of individual course sites by using course themes and altering the look of the course menu.

The look of courses in Blackboard Learn may be altered by going to the Control Panel within a course site, then clicking on Customization.  Within the menu, clicking Teaching Style will display the course theme options and the menu options.

There are a number of course theme options available for selection.  The theme to an instructor’s favorite color, or it may be changed to match the season, or to a theme appropriate for the course’s area – there are themes for specific fields of study that may be applied.  Course themes may also be changed in the upper right hand corner of the Learn screen by clicking on the palette icon. 

Course Theme Examples (click thumbnail for full view):

Night Theme

Chalkboard Theme

Vista Theme

Biology Theme

The menu can also be altered.  The default plain text may be altered to change the text color or the background, or the menu may be changed from plain text to buttons.

Within the Teaching Style area of the Customization menu, under part 3, “Select Menu Style”,  the menu can be altered.  With the text style menu, the background and/or text color can be changed to a preferred look.  Alternatively, if buttons is selected as the menu style, a plain or textured button may be selected, and Blackboard Learn will present options that can be selected..

Course banners may also be added within Learn.  Course banners are images that will appear on the entry page to courses, and can be created with common image editors like Photoshop, Paint, GIMP, or PaintShop.  However, banners can also be created with Microsoft PowerPoint.

Course banners should be 8 inches wide by 1 inch high (768 pixels by 96 pixels). With PowerPoint, banners can be created by selecting Page Setup from the Design ribbon, then selecting “Banner” under the Slides Sized For: option menu.  An example of a banner created with PowerPoint is below:

Course banners should be saved as .jpg, .gif, or .png files.  To upload a course banner, within the Teaching Style area of the Customization menu, under part 6, “Select Banner”, click the “Browse My Computer” button to locate the file for upload to Blackboard Learn.

The uploaded banner will only appear on the entry page of the course.  The benefit of a course banner is that it is able to present an attractive verification of what class the student is accessing.

Alterations in how a course is displayed can help a faculty member make a course more inviting to students and also show a bit of the personality of the faculty member, especially if the course is completely delivered online.

Logical Placement of Course Information

In Purdue’s installation of Blackboard Learn, by default there is a “Course Content” link on the menu of each course.  Faculty who are placing documents, videos, and other materials within the course can utilize this single area.

Within the Content Area, content folders can be added to allow faculty to separate content being used for specific weeks or learning units and place them into appropriately labeled folders.  This will allow students to quickly access and find the materials they need to complete assignments or to read or view materials that will reinforce what they learned in lecture.  Using learning modules can also accomplish this task.

Pascarella and Terenzini (2005) cited research that pointed out that student performance in courses where instruction was highly organized performed better than their counterparts in courses where organization was low.  While this study was focused on lecture, for faculty teaching courses completely online or utilizing tools like Blackboard Learn to blend technology into their course, organization of course material logically for students to easily access and use within Blackboard should be considered carefully.

Additional content areas can be added to your Blackboard Learn menu to help with placement of content or exercises within Blackboard.  Some faculty members elect to create a separate content area for quizzes and exams.  Other faculty may create content areas for resources that students will need access to that may not be directly related to the course content but will assist students, such as links to the library, writing center, or other campus academic resources.

Grouping content together can allow students to find what they need on a Blackboard Learn site quickly and efficiently.  This can build student traffic to Learn and allow faculty to look at placing more and more materials on Learn that students can access on their own.

Final Thoughts

While there can be a focus on simply getting material onto Learn, using careful planning to place content within Learn, and altering the look and feel of a Learn site, can make Blackboard Learn an important resource for all courses, regardless of delivery method.  Small things like making a course more attractive can demonstrate to students that the instructor wants them to view Learn as more than just an online resource, but as an important component of their class.  For more information on how to utilize the tools within Learn to alter the look and feel of your course, please contact tlt-consulting@lists.purdue.edu.

Brett Creech
Educational Technologist

References

Pascarella, E. T. & Terenzini, P. T. (2005).  How college affects students, volume 2.  A

            third decade of research.    San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Strange, C. C. & Banning, J. H. (2001).  Educating by design: Creating campus

           environments that work.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Providing students with a consistent, predictable online experience will help reduce questions related to technology and course navigation. Taking some time to convert content to select web-based standards limits exposure to problematic file formats.

In the world of web-based content and applications, there are a myriad of options to choose. From the developer standpoint, content can be provided through various forms of multimedia. The more complex and proprietary the content is, the more risk there is in the user’s ability to access the content. From the user’s perspective, there are an assortment of browsers that can be run on a variety of platforms. Each combination has the potential to render content differently or not at all. To help minimize problems, instructors can take a two-step approach: 1) provide content using formats that are web-based standards and have the greatest potential to be rendered correctly across platforms; and 2) provide students with an opportunity to test the chosen formats early in the course.

Providing content that is cross-platform compatible is a challenge that is complicated by the frequent updates and upgrades of the various browsers. Just be aware! What works today can be broken by tomorrows browser update. Adding mobile devices to the mix complicates things further. The goal is to make the content accessible to students, not make all content accessible on ALL combinations of browsers and devices. Focus on the standards: MAC and PC running Safari, IE, Firefox or Chrome. If the content is readily available via a desktop computer, then it’s available to students. The inability to display content on a mobile device should not be considered a deal-killer. Having content available on a mobile device is a very nice perk, and a worthy goal. But at this point, it’s still a luxury.

In dealing with multimedia, choose a format and run with it – consistently. Viewing videos in a variety of formats such as mov, wmv, mp4, m4v, etc, will be frustrating and confusing for students. Choose one and use it for all videos. If needed, convert files to a single format. The best options is to use a cross-platform streaming solution. Within Blackboard Learn, that solution is Kaltura.  The Kaltura application converts the movie files to format that can be played on any device. Kaltura also embeds the videos within the Blackboard Learn environment so they can be easily access by students within the normal progression of the course.

The same single-format strategy should be used for images, audio files and other multimedia formats as well. If you are posting images in a course, use png files throughout the courses. This provides consistency, manages the image size, and provides transparency to a graphic if desired. For audio files, mp3 is usually a good choice. There are others as well, but choose and use only one format.

For documents, live in the world of PDFs. The PDF format, a universally accepted format for web-based documents, should be the default for all documents and files whenever possible. The posting of Word, or PowerPoint files should only be done strategically with a teaching and/or learning goal in mind. If the same goal can be accomplished through a PDF format, then go with it.

Once you’ve created the consistency within the course, provide the students with an opportunity to test functionality. One approach is to create an activity within a Blackboard Learn course that will effectively allow the students to test all the technologies and formats that they will encounter in the course. Create a low-stakes or no-stakes quiz that incorporates a video, image, audio file, graphic, or any other multimedia format that is present in the course. Ask questions about these elements and have the students respond and submit the quiz. An activity such as this will reveal any issues students may have accessing content. These issues can then be very quickly addressed early in the semester. Perhaps having a syllabus quiz that accomplishes this task along with making sure students have read and understand the expectations of the course.

Providing students with consistent formats that are cross-platform and cross-browser compatible can reduce technological frustration. Having students test all file formats through a first week activity will help solve problems early and enable instructors and students alike to concentrate on teaching and learning.

Technology makes it extremely easy to share digital artifacts, and hence re-use the original work of others.  However, just because it’s easily done does not make it lawful.  Copyright law governs when this sharing is permitted and when it is not.  In this post, we’ll delve into a special provision of copyright law which permits sharing original content, Fair Use.

The Fair Use exception to the Copyright Act of 1976 allows you to use the work of others as long as it meets certain criteria.   While the term Fair Use is something that many in education are familiar with, it cannot automatically be applied just because it meets a limited set of criteria.  All of its criteria must be weighed before a decision can be reached.  We will discuss factors that should be considered to make this determination.  We’d like to stress that these are guidelines, and not static rules, for Copyright Law is very subjective.

Purpose

The first factor addresses the question: for what purpose do you need to use the material?    If the use is for education, research, or nonprofit then this supports a case for Fair Use.  If the purpose was to make a profit off of the work, or was purely for entertainment purposes, then this would not support the application of Fair Use.

If the purpose of the work is to be transformative (the original work has been modified and re-purposed), then this weighs in favor of Fair Use.  For example, if parts of a fictional story and the associated characters were used to teach math, this may qualify as being transformative therefore giving it a factor weighing in favor of invoking Fair Use.  Criticisms are also protected by Fair Use, giving the critic permission to use a portion of the owner’s work in order to emphasize points during the critique.

Amount

The second factor attempts to discover how much material is appropriate to use.  This factor is heavily dependent on purpose.  For example, if a work is that of parody, then a large portion of the original material could be used and still be protected by Fair Use.  A large amount can also be used for educational purposes.  However, if a reviewer decided to post the entire original work with only the occasional critique, than this will not be protected by Fair Use.  For the most part, only a small amount can be used.  Even then, it cannot be the portion that is considered “the heart of the work” for it to be exempt under Fair Use.

The exceptions to the U.S. copyright law (Fair Use and the TEACH Act) allow instructors to use video clips in online classes similarly to how they might in face-to-face classes.  You might assume, then, that it is legal to take video clips from DVD’s and put them online for a class.  But if I were to take a DVD video clip and post it in my Blackboard class, I might be breaking federal law.

This is because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).  DVD video is encrypted: it is encoded like a spy might encode a message.  This means only DVD players which know the code are able to decrypt the video and play it.  If I were to copy the video files off of the DVD and into the Blackboard class, they wouldn’t be playable, because they would still be encrypted.  To decrypt the video files and make them freely playable, I would need to “break” the encryption.  In other words, I would need to skirt around the protection measure meant to keep me from accessing the video.

There are free software programs available that will decrypt (“rip”) the video for me, solving the problem in just minutes.  However, the DMCA has an anti-circumvention provision, which says it is illegal to break the access protection on digital media.  So although my use of the video is legal, and the software designed to access the video is freely available, I would be breaking federal law if I were to use it.

So, does that rule you out? Would it be illegal for you to do the same thing?  Not necessarily.  Every three years, the Library of Congress issues exemptions to the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.  Currently, the exemptions make circumvention of DVD encryption legal in a few cases:

Motion pictures on DVDs that are lawfully made and acquired and that are protected by the Content Scrambling System when circumvention is accomplished solely in order to accomplish the incorporation of short portions of motion pictures into new works for the purpose of criticism or comment, and where the person engaging in circumvention believes and has reasonable grounds for believing that circumvention is necessary to fulfill the purpose of the use in the following instances:
(i) Educational uses by college and university professors and by college and university film and media studies students;
(ii) Documentary filmmaking;
(iii) Noncommercial videos

Quote taken from http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2010/10-169.html

Please allow me to decrypt, or decode, the quote for you.  Ripping a DVD video is lawful if the video is going to be used for the purpose of education by a college or university professor, or by a college or university film student.  Because I am not a professor, I cannot rip a video for use in a class.  Similarly, graduate TAs and high school teachers could not legally rip a video.  But if you are a professor, you can rip a video for use in your class.  Even then, you can only do so for the “incorporation of short portions of motion picture … for the purpose of criticism or comment”.  So you can’t do entire movies, and not just for entertainment purposes.

As an aside, notice that there is no exemption for use by commercial online streaming video services.  One has to hope that Netflix is getting unencrypted video files directly from rights holders.  If it is instead sourcing its streaming video from encrypted DVD’s, its employees are breaking the law, notwithstanding streaming contracts it may hold.

The move to Blackboard Learn 9.1 from the current version of BlackboardVista 8 is not an update. It is instead a transition from one course management system (CMS) to another. Despite the sharing of the Blackboard name, the systems are very different. The current Blackboard Vista 8 represents the end of the WebCT era: the last update of the acquired software package. When Blackboard announced the acquisition of WebCT back in 2005, the intent was to design an CMS that took the best features and technologies of both the Blackboard and WebCT platforms to create a more robust CMS. The new CMS, under the project name Blackboard NG (next generation), would eventually be released in 2010 as Blackboard Learn 9.1.

The fact that Learn is different from Vista changes the scope of the project from both the technological and academic perspectives. ITaP continues to aggressively find solutions to the technical aspects of the move. The IDC is committed to assisting instructors with the challenges and opportunities on the academic side of the transition. As mentioned, Blackboard Learn is a different CMS. It is not a simple upgrade of Vista. As a result, courses are not easily transferred. After thorough testing, the migration tool provided by Blackboard proved ineffective and inefficient. Fortunately, files stored within Vista can be moved to Learn efficiently. However, the content and structure of courses will need to be rebuilt in Learn. While this may be initially seen as a failure, it does provide opportunities that may otherwise have been overlooked.

To quote Winston Churchill, “An optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.” And there is opportunity in the Blackboard transition for the optimist (and others too). Even if a fast and efficient tool were available to recreate courses from Vista to Learn, the transition provides instructors with the opportunity to reexamine everything about their Blackboard courses. By taking an evaluative look at course materials, instructors and course designers can consider the tools and features unique to Blackboard Learn as they innovatively and creatively design instructional content. Tools such as wikis, journals, blogs, rubrics, and other improved or new features provide instructors the ability to reinvent instructional and supplemental material in Blackboard. It’s an opportunity worth seizing.

If you would like to explore the possibilities of Blackboard Learn as it relates to teaching and learning, contact the IDC team to schedule a consult.

With Purdue’s change from Blackboard Vista to Blackboard Learn underway, I thought it would be helpful to highlight some of most noticable changes between the two systems, and point out some things the new system lets users do that the old system could not.

No Build, Teach, or Student Tabs

There are no Build, Teach, or Student tabs in Blackboard Learn. These have been replaced with an Edit Mode On/Off button. With Edit Mode turned on, users can build and edit content in the course. Turning Edit Mode off lets users see what the course will appear like to students. If users wants to delve further into what the experience is like for students, a student view tool is available. Accessing the student view tool will virtually log in an instructor as a demo student and allow them to view content, complete assignments and assessments, and access all course materials as a student – exactly like the student tab in Blackboard Vista.

Improved Menu

Blackboard Learn provides users with a highly customizable course menu. Gone are the days of being tied to one type of content per menu item. Users can now customize their menu to best suit the needs of the course. Users can add a content area, tool link, or course link to their menu.

• I find it’s easiest to think of adding a content area to a menu as adding a folder. Within that folder, you can add files, assignments, assessments, YouTube videos, interactive tools, links to other items or places in your course, and all manner of other items. There is a lot of flexibility as to what you can add in a content area.
• A tool link is a direct link to a specific tool. So, if you wanted to add a menu item that would take students directly to all of your discussion boards for a course, for example, then a tool link would be the way to go.
• A course link is a link to an item that already exists in the course. Continuing the example from above, if you wanted a menu item to take students directly to discussion board #3 instead of a page with all of your discussions boards on it, then creating a course link would be the way to go.

Easier to add/modify files

Blackboard Learn offers users an improved content collection. Multiple files can be added at one time to a content collection through a simple drag and drop interface. Entire zipped folders worth of content can be easily unpackaged from within the Blackboard interface. By enabling versioning on a file and taking advantage of a webdav tool like Blackboard Drive or Web Folders , users can update files easier than ever before – without even opening Blackboard if desired.

You don’t have to wait until Fall to start exploring all of these new features. You can see for yourself now by requesting a master course. Master courses are courses an instructor can use for development. When a Banner generated section of a course is created, an instructor can easily link the contents of their master course to the Banner generated section.

ITaP is offering training throughout the rest of the semester and summer for anyone interested in learning how to use Blackboard Learn. Our next offerings are the week of April 9 with more offerings coming finals week and beyond.

For a more comprehensive list of what’s new in Blackboard Learn, check out this video and this comparison chart of the differences between Blackboard Vista and Learn.