FAQ for Instructors on Blackboard (my.gallaudet.edu)

Semester TransitionsCourse CartridgesDocuments in this page are for various tasks that instructors may do in my.Gallaudet.edu (BlackBoard). In order to view those documents, you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader and/or Flash. If you want to download software on your office computer, you will need to submit a ticket with Help Desk to have a technician to come by and install them for you.

The following information should provide answers to most common Blackboard (Bb) questions.

Combine multiple courses into a single course site?

Submit a ticket to Help Desk with information of all courses that you wish to combine into a single course site. This request will allow other course sites to be unavailable and move students into a single course site.

Request a custom course site?

Submit a ticket to Help Desk. A custom course may be requested manually for the following reasons: to develop content in advance of a course being available, or to prepare a site for tenure review purposes. Otherwise, you may request an Organization site for any other reasons.

Remove old courses from my.Gallaudet account

All Blackboard courses older than four years are have been purged.  Spring 2007 and newer courses are still in the system. This action was proposed in the November 16 faculty meeting and passed. Please contact your eLearning specialist if you have any concerns or would like to archive your courses.

Course Management	Description	HTML	PDF	Video
Semester Transitions	Learn about some important steps to back up your course sites and transition to another semester.
Make Course Available	Learn how to make your course available to your students. (NEW for Bb 9.1)
View/Save/Print Course Evaluations	How to save your course evaluations to PDF and file it away.
Set Guest Availability	How do I set my course available to my guests?
Guest Access to your Course	How do your guest get to the course you just made available to guests?
Import a Course Cartridge	How do I import publisher's content into my Bb course?

Assessment	Description	HTML	PDF	Video
Grade Center:  Introduction	Introduction to and basic steps of setup and using the Grade Center for your class.
Grade Center: Manage Grades	Grades can be entered into the Grade Center either by automatically or manually. Learn to enter a grade manually, change a grade, add a comment to a grade, delete a grade, revert a grade, delete an attempt, drop a grade, and view a grade's history.
Grade Center: Customize Spreadsheet with Smart Views	You can create “Smart Views,” a display of the Grade Center spreadsheet data based on your criteria. Any Smart View can be saved as the default view of the Grade Center.
Grade Center: Change Grading Scale	You can change the predefined grading scale to display a grade as "Pass/Fail" or a letter grade, by using the Grading Schema to modify to your choice.
Grade Center: Calculate Grades	You can Add Calculated Columns to perform customized weighted-grade calculations and include only selected columns in the calculations.
Grade Center: Download Grades	You can download Grade Center data to your computer as a tab or comma delimited file that you can use in other applications such as Microsoft Excel or any other statistical analysis programs.
Grade Center: Adding Extra Credit	Explain how to add Extra Credit to your Totals column. Will not work with Weighted Total column.

Course Tools	Description	HTML	PDF	Video
Syllabus	Learn how to add/build a syllabus for your course.
Announcement	Learn how to add an announcement to create a welcome statement or inform of any new materials to your students
Manage Course Menu	Learn how to add/remove/organize your course menu.
Add Course Banner	Learn how to add banner to your course.
Create an Assignment	Learn how to create an Assignment where your students can send their homework files.
Create a Safe Assignment	Safe Assignment is a plagiarism checking tool. Learn how to create a Safe Assignment and understand what kind of files will work with Safe Assignment.
Discussion Board Overview	Learn how to customize and manage discussion boards.
Discussion Board Forums	Learn how to add/build discussion forums.
Create and manage Groups	Learn how to create and manage Groups.

Specialty Tools	Description	HTML	PDF	Video
Blackboard Scholar	Learn how to SAVE your bookmarks online, SHARE your bookmarks with other users, DISCOVER new useful links, and TAG your bookmarks for sorting and easy retrieval from ANY computer.
Blogs	Learn how to set up blogs for your course.
Wikis	Learn how to set up shared web space for students to create collaboration work as part of their class projects.
Content Collection	Learn how to use Bb's file storage and management system.
ePortfolios	Learn how to set up eportfolios for students to create as part of their class project.

Multimedia Tools	Description	HTML	PDF	Video
Video Embedding	How to embed (insert) a video clip into your Blackboard course.
Video Linking	How to do a link to your video clip.
Creating a hyperlink	How to create a hyperlink in your text, linking to a website or video.
Insert video clip into Power Point	How to insert a video clip into your Microsoft Power Point presentation.
Insert a video clip link into Power Point	How to add a hyperlink linking to your video clip into your Microsoft Power Point presentation.