What is the workaround?

• For more information, please review this FAQ article.
• For questions or support, please open an RT ticket.

• Winter and Spring 2015 course shells were created on the new MH site on 12/2.
• Review the FAQ article for instructions on logging into the MH site.
• You may also be interested in a list of new tools and updates available to faculty in the new MH site.
• Course content from AY12-13 and AY13-14 has been migrated to the new MH Bb site.

Second, Fall 2014 Bb courses will be migrated to our Bb managed hosted (MH) system after final grades are submitted on 1/5/15, the same day Winter 2015 courses begin. To access FA2014 Bb courses between 12/29/14 and 1/5/15, faculty can do so through my.umbc.edu/go/bbfall that will be prominently displayed in myUMBC. 

Finally, DoIT's Instructional Technology staff are offering several scheduled training sessions to help faculty prepare for Winter and Spring courses, and to learn about helpful resources in Blackboard such as the Grade Center. These sessions will be delivered simultaneously in person and virtually via Bb Collaborate.  Faculty may also want to check out the following:

• January 14 Hybrid Course Design Workshop Open to All Faculty

• Free online training from the Online Learning Consortium

• 30-minute Blackboard Boot Camp training sessions 

• FYI: DoIT hosted 4 faculty info sessions this Fall and published the presentation (pdf).

As always, if you have questions, please consult the Bb FAQs inside Bb or directly at www.umbc.edu/blackboard/help, submit an RT ticket or contact the Technology Support Center (TSC).

Sincerely,

John Fritz

Asst. VP, Instructional Technology

UMBC Division of Information Technology (DoIT)

• Go to my.umbc.edu/go/bbnew
• Note: You will use this temporary web address until late December. It is intended only for faculty and staff at this time.
• Click on the black button, LOG IN TO BLACKBOARD. If you are not already logged in to myUMBC, you will be prompted to do so with your UMBC credentials.

Under the My Courses nugget and the All Courses tab, you will see courses from AY12-13 and AY13-14. Winter and Spring 2015 courses  are also listed based on the schedule of courses, but unavailable.

• Instructors: Please refrain from assigning any work that is due on Blackboard during this maintenance time. When the system is offline, students cannot submit their work.
• Students: Please be sure to save or submit any work before this time. Any unsaved or unsubmitted work will immediately be lost when the system shuts down.

If you have watched anyone playing a video game, you know how the digital universe motivates people. Faculty can also motivate students in the upcoming Blackboard with a form of "gamification" by incorporating badges into their courses. With the Blackboard achievements tool, faculty can provide this kind of incentive by designing a badge system to encourage students to explore and participate more.

A student's badge collection can represent the key learning milestones that he or she met. Earned badges can show a complete view of a person’s skills and achievements. 

Being rewarded is also a powerful extrinsic motivator. One of the best rewards is recognition for a job well done. Finally, providing these opportunities for rewarding students throughout a course can create a map of what they can learn.

• Learn 7 things about badges and 7 things about gamification from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative
• Get ready to use the Achievements tool in Blackboard, coming in January 2015
• Read more about best practices with using Achievements

• Instructors: Please refrain from assigning any work that is due on Blackboard during this maintenance time. When the system is offline, students cannot submit their work.
• Students: Please be sure to save or submit any work before this time. Any unsaved or unsubmitted work will immediately be lost when the system shuts down.

• Friday, October 24, 2014
• Friday, November 21, 2014

• Integrated SafeAssign 
• SafeAssign will be fully integrated with the Assignment creation and grading workflow, allowing you to use embedded feedback tools and rubrics.

• Student Preview 
• While in Student Preview mode you can interact with the course as if you were a student, including taking quizzes/tests, submitting assignments, posting to discussions, etc.
• Anonymous & Delegated Grading 
• Whenever you want to add another layer of fairness and impartiality to your grading, you can use the anonymous grading feature. Using grades and feedback from more than one grader via delegated grading helps to promote reliability and remove bias. These tools can be used together or separately.
• Achievements for Competency Based Learning 
• You can use the achievements tool to create opportunities for students to earn recognition in the form of badges or certificates for certain work and other competency based learning.
• Course Messages Updates 
• Anyone enrolled in a course can now receive a notification that they have new course messages from the Updates area in My Blackboard, in the What's New module on both institutional and course module pages, and from email.
• Grading Improvements
• Blackboard redesigned the My Grades page so students can sort and display their grades by what has been graded, what is upcoming, and what has been submitted, but is not yet graded.
• When you create an assessment or assignment with multiple attempts, you can now specify how Blackboard should calculate the grades (e.g., use the last graded attempt, use the highest grade, average all attempts, etc.). Previously, you would have to edit the grade center column after creating the activity.
• You can manually override the total points possible for a test while maintaining the integrity of the scoring.
• Grading Schemas can now have values greater than 100%
• Blackboard will also offer a mobile grading app, BbGrader, for iPad (iOS 7, iOS 8).

• Test Access Log 
• This tool shows a list of every interaction a students engaged in when taking a test. If a student claims to have started a test, the log will show the time the test was started. If a network or internet disruption occurred during the test for example, the log would show an unusual gap in the time.
• Retention Center 
• Discover which students in your course are at risk. Based on preconfigured rules and rules you create, students’ engagement and participation are visually displayed in the Retention Center, quickly alerting you to potential risk. You can communicate with struggling students and help them take immediate action for improvement.
• Test Availability Exceptions 
• Use exceptions to provide an accommodation to a disabled student, or provide accommodations for technology and language differences. Select one student, several students, or groups of students.
• Test Feedback Options 
• By setting up rules, you can set the release of progressive feedback to keep test results secure and prevent cheating. Students also see their submitted answers marked as correct or incorrect and any feedback you provided.
• Date Management 
• Use this tool to easily adjust all content and tool dates in your course. You can choose to adjust dates automatically or individually based on the course’s starting date, the term information, or by number of days when you know exactly how many days you want to adjust dates by.
• Group Management 
• Easily see which students are in which groups, including which students are not in any groups. Choose and manage membership for groups sets, and create Grade Center smart views for one or more groups on the All Groups page.

• Direct uploads of video and audio files. 
• The hosted environment of Blackboard is not designed to support streaming media. Instructors can still upload videos to YouTube and embed that content as unlisted videos, or upload multimedia to Box and link to that content.
• SafeAssignments. 
• Blackboard internal plagiarism checking tool will be now fully integrated with the regular Assignment workflow.

• Native collaboration tools (e.g., Virtual Classroom). 
• These tools were built on an archaic system and are no longer supported by the vendor. Bb Collaborate is a full suite of web conference tools available in all courses.