Notes to Faculty

September 19, 2007

As we begin a new academic year, I wanted to touch bases with you on a few items of interest regarding Blackboard. As you probably know, Blackboard is our online course management system, allowing instructors to teach at a distance or enhance face-to-face classes with instructional content, electronic communications, and online assessments. All EOU courses (both on- and off-campus) have a corresponding course “shell” in Blackboard. These Blackboard courses are made available to students at the discretion of individual faculty.

Here are important notes regarding Blackboard:

1. Training
   To facilitate the use of Blackboard, the EOU Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (CTLA) and the Division of Distance Education (DDE) are pleased to announce faculty workshops for Blackboard training. These workshops will cover a variety of topics for faculty of all skill levels, including Blackboard Basics; Assignments, Tests, and the Gradebook; Communication Tools; and Creating and Administering Exams with Respondus. Most workshops will be held in the computer training room on the first floor of Hunt Hall, room B128. Workshops will also be offered in an online format especially suitable for off-campus participation, which will also be recorded for later review. The schedule for the workshops is listed below and at the CTLA web site: http://www.eou.edu/ctl/calendar.html. Please reserve a space in the workshop(s) of your choice by contacting Travis Paulson in the DDE office at tpaulson@eou.edu or 2-3788. You may also register yourself for an online or hybrid workshop at http://eou.webex.com. The first workshop is Wed. 9/19, with more scheduled in the coming days and weeks. For those who may have seen an earlier copy of the schedule, the “What’s New” workshops have been cancelled. (There are no significant updates since Spring term.)
   
   
2. Tutorials
   In addition to instructor-led workshops, there are new animated tutorials available on specific tasks, such as copying course materials, making courses available, and participating in online discussions. Visit http://www.eou.edu/bbhelp/tutorials.html to see the current list. You may also wish to refer your students to some of these tutorials.
   
   
3. Support
   Because of our limited staff (Tammy Girt moved to a new position within DDE), and to provide 24/7 support to students and faculty, we have contracted with a professional service for Blackboard support. If you need help using Blackboard, please visit http://d2.parature.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4330 or call 1-866-517-3593. This information is also listed on the http://www.eou.edu/bbhelp site and the Blackboard login page. Since this company supports hundreds of universities, all starting a new school year, there may be delays when you call at the start of the term, which will improve as the school year progresses.
   
   
4. Copying Courses
   Again, because of limited staffing, we are asking instructors to copy their own course materials from previous terms, rather than ask DDE to do it. There is more information and an animated tutorial on how to do this at http://www.eou.edu/bbhelp/copycourse.html
   
   
5. Combining Courses
   You may have multiple course “shells” in Blackboard for what you consider to be a single course (because there may be multiple CRNs for cross-listed courses, or because you have multiple sections, for example). Since instructors cannot add students to their courses, DDE will need to do this for you. Please send a request to bbadmin@eou.edu with the Blackboard course ID or CRN of the course you want all the students to be in (the “master course”) and the ID’s of the courses from which to draw the other students. Keep in mind, that this “breaks” the link between these student enrollments and the Banner system. Students from these copied courses who add or drop will not be automatically updated in the Blackboard course roster.
   
   
6. Certificate Warning
   One bug in Blackboard that is still have unresolved is the expired certificate for Design Science (who created the applet that gives the formatting buttons for text boxes). That is, when you open a Blackboard page that has a text editor box, you may receive a message that the certificate from Design Science has expired. To resolve this, first make sure the “Always trust” option is selected (if available), then click on the Run or Trust button. If your students use the Respondus LockDown Browser to take online exams, this error will prevent students from taking a test. Make sure your students (and their proctors) are aware of this. Travis Paulson can help provide guidelines on how to prevent problems if you have proctored online exams. We hope to see a fix for this problem soon.
   
   
7. Communicating with Students
   Remember to make your course available at the start of the term. Also, students tell us that frequent, meaningful instructor participation and communication are among the biggest factors for student satisfaction and success.
   
   
8. Blackboard Conference
   Finally, if you’re interested and can come up with travel dollars, there is a conference for the Pacific Northwest Blackboard Users Group on October 19 at the University of Oregon. See http://www.wabug.org for more information.

Thank you for your efforts toward excellence in teaching and learning at EOU.

Curt Whittaker, M.A.
Dir. of Instructional Support/Instructional Design
Division of Distance Education
Eastern Oregon University