Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
Tutorials and Documentation
MyLETU Courses: Blackboard Enterprise 7.1
MyLETU Courses was upgraded from Blackboard Basic 6.3 to Blackboard Enterprise 7.1 in early September. This upgrade was a necessary first step toward completing several planned improvements to MyLETU Courses this semester.
With this upgrade, MyLETU Courses now resides on multiple servers designed to maximize system availability and performance. Faculty and students will experience a few interface changes immediately, primarily in the Discussion Board area. Other changes are scheduled for implementation later this year.
Several known issues have been identified with the current Blackboard version, and are described below. New features in Blackboard 7.1 are also described below.
Known Issues
Browser/operating system compatibilities – some users may need to upgrade their web browsers or reconfigure their web browsers for full operational compatibility with Blackboard 7.1 (see our technical requirements page).
Copying/cutting/pasting text into the Visual Text Box Editor used by Blackboard – Firefox users are prevented from doing this by Firefox as a security precaution. Mozilla.org has provided instructions for modifying preferences in Firefox to allow pasting. http://www.mozilla.org/editor/midasdemo/securityprefs.html Alternatively, users may choose to disable the Visual Text Box Editor – click on the Home page inside MyLETU Courses, click Personal Information, click Set Visual Text Box Editor Options, click Unavailable, then click Submit.
Safari posts are blank - using Safari will cause blank messages to be posted in the Discussion Board forums in Blackboard. There is not yet a fix for this from Blackboard so we recommend Mac users use Firefox. Alternatively, users may choose to disable the Visual Text Box Editor – click on the Home page inside MyLETU Courses, click Personal Information, click Set Visual Text Box Editor Options, click Unavailable, then click Submit.
Files with special characters in the filename cannot be uploaded – when special characters (such as a #) is included in a filename, the file will not be uploaded or submitted to the instructor properly. Rename the file on your local computer and then resubmit.
Discussion Board error message about your browser not supporting IFRAMES -- when you try to access a discussion board and you receive an error message saying that your web browser does not support IFRAMES, try enabling IFRAMES in Internet Explorer as follows: click the Tools menu, click Internet Options, click the Security tab, click Custom Level, scroll down to find "Launching programs and files in an IFRAME" and set that option to Enable, click OK and OK again. You may also need to check that any third party firewall software installed on your machine is not interfering with Blackboard. If you are using McAfee Security Suite, you may need to disalbe the Ad Blocker.
Messages about trusting content from a third-party publisher – you may get
messages on your screen about trusting (or accepting, or running) an applet that is a third-party
product used by Blackboard. If you choose to always trust content from the publisher, the
message should not re-appear.
New Features: Discussion Board
Instructors are now able to make individual forums available or unavailable at specific dates and times.
Instructors are now able to assign grades to forum discussions and/or individual posts. When an instructor designates a grading option for a forum, a column is automatically created in the gradebook for that forum. Then when an instructor enters grades for posts or discussions, the grade is automatically added to the correct gradebook column.
Instructors can allow peer ratings of posts.
Instructors can now " lock" and "hide"a forum to prevent additional posts, but allow users to read existing threads. This feature replaces "archive" forum.
Users can group posts into Collections. Collections can be sorted and filtered by author, date, thread, or subject to customize the Collection for easy viewing and printing.
Users can subscribe to forums (if the instructor has enabled this feature), so that they will receive email notifications of forum updates.
Instructors can create moderated forums, requiring that every post be viewed and accepted by a moderator before being posted for the class.
The interface for viewing, creating, and replying to posts is different, providing users more information about posted threads and more options for managing their view.
Users can save posts as drafts, allowing them to work on a post over more than one Blackboard session until the post is ready for publishing.
Searches can be limited or expanded to include current forum, current thread, or all forums in the course.
The documents below will help you learn more about the changes in the Discussion Board:
- bb7_db_comp_fac.doc - Compares the old discussion board with the new discussion board, from a faculty's point-of-view.
- bb7_db_comp_stud.doc - Compares the old discussion board with the new discussion board, from a student's point-of-view.
- DB_bb7_fac.doc - Provides detailed instructions for faculty about using the new discussion board.
- DB_bb7_students.doc - Provides detailed instructions for students about using the new discussion board.
New Features: Performance Dashboard
Instructors can quickly view a summary of student performance by clicking
Performance Dashboard
in the Control Panel. The summary includes when each student last logged in to the
course, how many posts they have made in the discussion board, and current grades. Discussion
board statistics are also available for each student.
New Features: Safe Assignment
Instructors can now set up "safe assignments" that will automatically check student papers against numerous sources and prepare a report for both the student and the faculty member . This feature encourages students to turn in original work and helps them learn how to correctly cite references for resources used within their papers.
- Instructor manual - detailed instructions on how to set up a safe assignment and how to check the results on a submitted paper.
- Student manual - instructions on how to submit a document and how to check grades and results.
New Features: Assessments and Gradebook
Assessments may now be set to allow unlimited attempts or a specific number of attempts. The Gradebook displays all of the attempts (rather than just the last attempt, as before). The instructor can choose how the assessment should be graded (last attempt, first attempt, average of scores, highest or lowest score).
Instructors can set the options for an assessment to allow only the student to view the results (for a self-assessment).
Individual tests and surveys can now be exported and imported.
Tests can include questions that are marked for
extra credit only.
New Features: Other
Spell Check is now available for email messages within Blackboard.
Quick Tutorials are available in the Control Panel for instructors, and on the Home page for all users. Quick Tutorials are self-guided multimedia tutorials provided by Blackboard, covering many of the features found in their software.