Issue/Question Can I download all assignments at once?  How do I download all assignments at once?  Resolution After students submit documents to an assignment their submissions can be downloaded for offline review instead of reviewing them online in the Grade Center. Choose to download all or just selected student documents as a single .zip file. Unzip or expand the file to view the contents, where each submission is saved as a separate file.  In the Grade Center, locate the column for the assignment you want to download.  Access the assignment column's contextual menu and select Assignment File Download.  On the Download Assignment page, select the student submissions to download, or select the check box in the header bar to choose all available submissions.  Click Submit.  On the next Download Assignment page, click the Download assignments now link. A pop-up window displays to prompt you for instructions on what to do with the file.  In the pop-up window, select Save File and click OK.  Browse to the location where you want to download the file, and then click Save.  To return to the Grade Center, click OK on the Download Assignment page.  When using the Assignment File Download function, user names are included automatically in the file names for easy identification. However, files downloaded one by one from the Grade Assignment page will not include the user names. To avoid confusion, you may want to instruct students to use a detailed file name that includes their last name or their user name when submitting assignments.

Table of Contents Best Practices Best Practices: Post Course Copy Course Copy Process Duplicated Course Menu Links Reordering Course Menu Items Moving Course Items to a Different Folder Course Entry Point Best Practices When copying an old course over into the new course shell, there are some best practices you should adhere to ensure the desired results. DO NOT copy the course more than one time! Doing so will result in the Source Course (course copied) to be duplicated into the Destination Course (Course shell)  Check the Course Menu for duplicated items (see Duplicated Course Menu below). This is a must to eliminate course navigation problems for your students.   Pay particular attention to Step 8 to eliminate copying old discussions into the new course. See instructions for Moving a Course Menu Item /Folder to a Different Location below to move or copy individual items from one course to another. Set Course Entry Point Best Practices: Post Course Copy Complete the course copy process by removing old and unused items from their perspective areas. This will reduce the course storage space on the Blackboard server and will enhance responsiveness when you and your students are working in the course. Performing the best practices will also eliminate confusion for you and your students if unused items, files, etc., remain in the course and are visible to new students.  Course Content Collection (Files must be deleted inside the Course Content Collection area, just in the content areas such as Course Documents or Assignments). Files such as old syllabi Power Points Word documents Images Excel files Other unused items Course Documents Lecture Notes that are no longer relevant to the current course. Items containing information and files no longer needed in the course Hyperlinks Remove in irrelevant to the course Fix the links if they no longer work Assignments Writing Discussion Board Journal Blogs Wikis Tests Tests, Pools, and Surveys Old Tests that are no longer used in the course Old Pools that are no longer used in the course Old Survey that are no longer used in the course Course Copy Process In this process, you will enter the course you wish to copy (course to copy from, ie, source course), then select the course to copy the content into, select the course to copy to, make you Copy Options, and click Submit to complete the process. Note: you must be instructor in both courses and both must exist on the current Blackboard server. 1. Log in to Blackboard 2. Log into the Course that you wish to use to be copied (from). This is the course you want to copy.  3. Go to Course Management / Control Panel / Packages and Utilities, and select Course Copy.  4. In Package and Utilities, under the SELECT COPY TYPE, click the down-pointing chevron and select “Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course”.  5. In the SELECT COPY OPTIONS section, and Destination Course ID, click the Browse button. A Courses pop-out menu will display, and all the courses where you are enrolled as an instructor will be displayed. 6.Select the Destination Course ID (course copying into, by clinking the radio button, (circle) beside of the course you want to copy into, and click the Submit button. Note: Make sure you select correct destination course. In most cases, the destination should be empty shell. 7.Under the Select Course Materials section, click the Select All option. (you can select you only want specific areas). Note: Be cautious when copying only selected areas, especially with items that may have associated grades and/or rubrics. 8.Under Discussion Board (option), it is recommended to Select “Include only forums, with no started posts”. Note: Selecting “Include starter posts for each thread in each forum (anonymized)” will cause all forum posts for all Discussion Board Forums to be imported/brought into the new course. The Authors post will be set to Anonymous.   9.In the FILE ATTACHMENTS section, use option “Copy links and copies of the content” for most courses, and click the Submit button. Note: For courses with Softchalk and/or Course Content Management, the CTL department should be contacted before copying) 10. IMPORTANT: You will receive an email after the course copy process has completed. DO NOT WORK IN THE COURSE UNTIL YOU RECEIVE THIS CONFIRMATION EMAIL Duplicated Course Menu Links  1.After course copy process is completed, you should go into the new course and review the Course Menu. Note: Some Course Menu items may be duplicated and include empty menu items.    2.If duplicated menu items exists, you can identify the empty items buy the small grey box to the right of the menu named.  3.To delete the empty menu item, hover over the link, then click the down-pointing chevron, and select the Delete option.     4.The “Are you Sure Window” will popup. Click the Delete content option. 5.The delete confirmation window will pop-up again with the message “This action will permanently delete the Discussions content area”. Click the Delete button.   Reordering Course Menu Items 1.To move a Course Menu item to a different location, hover over the menu item. The item will change colors and you will see a light yellow rectangle on the left of the link. Place you mouse on the yellow section. Your arrow will change into a cross-hairs icon. While holding down the left mouse button, drag the item to the new location in the Course Menu. 2.When the item is positioned in the desired location, release the left mouse button. The item is now is in the new position in the Course Menu. Moving Course Items to a Different Folder Sometimes, the duplicated Course Menu items both will contain information that you need in the new course. To solve this problem, you will have to move the items into the correct area. 1.Locate the items in the Content Area. Click the drop-pointing chevron beside the item to be moved.  2.Click the Move option on the pop-out menu.  3.On the Move page, use the Destination Course drop down menu to select the course you would like to move to.   4.Click the Destination Folder Browse button.     5.Select the area in your course you would like to place the item or folder. You may click the Plus Sign + button to find another folder within a folder. Click the Submit button. Course Entry Point  When a user enters a Blackboard course, the first page they see is the course’s “entry point”. By default this is set to be the announcements page. If you wish, you may change your course’s entry point to be a different menu item within your course. Depending on the course entry point of the source course and the destination course, the course entry point may change.  Follow these directions to set the Course Entry Point to the correct area.  1.Go to the Control Panel > Customization > Teaching Styles. 2.Scroll down to the SELECT COURSE ENTRY POINT section. 3.From the drop-down menu, select the page you want to be the Course Entry Point. 4.Click the Submit button in the bottom right corner to save the changes.

Issue/Question How do I access Inline Grading (crocodoc)?  Resolution Inline Assignment Grading provides a way to grade assignments within your Blackboard course. Instead of needing to download student files to view or edit, instructors are able to view these files “inline,” i.e. in the Web browser, without the need for a plug-ins or additional software. Document types that can be viewed are Word (.doc, .docx), PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx), Excel (.xls,.xlsx), and PDF (.pdf). Embedded images and formatting of the original document are preserved.  Locate the appropriate assignment’s column in the Grade Center in Blackboard.  Select the button to the right in the student’s score cell. The button won’t appear until your mouse pointer is in the cell.  Select the attempt that needs to be graded.  The submitted assignment file will be displayed in the viewer on the left of the screen.  To exit this screen, select the Exit button near the top of the Blackboard screen, on the right, to return to the Grade Center.

Issue/Question How do I create an assignment?  Resolution You can create assignments in several areas within the course, such as in a content area, learning module or lesson plan.   Navigate to the content area where you want students to access the assignment.  On the action bar, point to Assessments and click Assignment.  On the Create Assignment page, provide the name, instructions, and any files students need.  Optionally, select a Due Date.  In the Grading section, type the Points Possible and optionally, associate a rubric. Optionally, expand the sections to make selections such as anonymous grading and how the grade is displayed.  Make the assignment available.  Optionally, select the Display After and Display Until check boxes to enable the date and time selections. Display restrictions do not affect availability, only when the assignment appears.  Optionally, select the check box to Track Number of Views.  Click Submit.

Issue/Question  How can I organize my courses by term?  Resolution Click on the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the My Courses or My Organizations module. Under Section 1, check the box that says Group by Term  Drag the terms on the far left to rearrange the order of the listings  Submit  To use the terms view, simply click on the name of the semester or assigned code to expand or collapse the folder  Note: If you do not see the Terms section after clicking the gear icon, your system administrator has not enabled the use of terms 

Issue/Question How can I see a list of my students in my Blackboard course?  How can I view my class roster?  Resolution The Users page will appear showing the first 25 users in your course. You can increase this to 1000 by going to the Edit Paging button on the lower right side of the screen. Enter the number of users you want to see on the page and click the Go button.  You can also get a list of students only by going to the Full Grade Center. The default number of students shown is 10. To increase this, click the Edit Rows Displayed button at the lower right side of the screen. Enter the number of students you want to see (up to 50) and click the Go button.  The only way to print these pages is to click the PrtScn button on your computer to take a screen shot. Open the screen shot on the program of your choice (Notepad, Paint, WordPad, MS Word, etc.) and print it out. You can also download the Grade Center to a spreadsheet then print from Excel.

1. Log into Blackboard by visiting https://blackboard.forsythtech.edu/. 2. Click the drop-down arrow on the Global Navigation bar at the top right of your screen. 3. Select Tools from the drop-down menu. 4. From the Tools list, select Portfolios.   5. Now you can select the option you need from the menu on the left side of the screen.

To ensure that Forsyth Tech is collecting accurate grading information, it is necessary that ALL courses set the external grade using the correct column in Grade Center. The External Grade column is set as your students' grades for your course and is integrated with the Starfish Early Alert system. It is critical that you have the external grade set correctly, so the correct information is sent to Starfish. Best Practices It is also essential that you delete or hide the column not chosen as the external grade, to eliminate confusion for students’ concerning their grades.  You should make it a habit to check your external grades every semester in every course you teach  Remember: You must do this in all of your courses! Follow the directions below to set the External Grade in your courses for either the Running Total or the Weighted grading methods. Running Total Grades Set the Weighted Grade column to the External Grade if you use the weighted grades method of grading. 1. Open a blackboard course that you are the instructor in.   2. Under Course Managements >Control Panel > Grade Center >Full Grade Center 3. In the Full Grade Center, click the drop-down edit menu to the right of the Total column name. 4. Select the Set as External Grade option 5. 5. A green arrow now appears just to the left of the column name. The arrow identifies this column as the External Grade. Weighted Grades Set the Weighted Grade column to the External Grade if you use the weighted grades method of grading. 1. Open a Blackboard course that you are the instructor in. 2. Under Course Managements > Control Panel > Grade Center > Full Grade Center 3. In the Full Grade Center, click the drop-down edit menu to the right of the Weighted Total column name. 4. On the pop-out menu, select Set as External Grade. 5. A green arrow now appears just to the left of the column name. The arrow identifies this column as the External Grade.

The Course Entry point is the first place a student has access to in your course. The default is Announcements.  To set the Course Entry Point in Blackboard, do the following: 1. Login to your Blackboard Course.  2. On the left side menu, scroll down to Course Management > Customization > Teaching Style. 3. There you will see Select Course Entry Point.  Drop down the chevron and choose Announcements.  4. Click submit. 

Please see the gif file for an animation on how to add a Discussion Board tab to your BlackBoard Course menu.