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1. Does my account ever expire? 2. How do I create a course on Bb@GW? 3. How do I create development courses? 4. How do I copy content from one course to another? 5. How much content may I place into each Bb@GW course? 6. Is there a limit to the number of Development Courses I can create? 7. How do I make a course available or unavailable to students? 8. How do my students join/enroll in my course on Bb@GW? 9. Can I add my TAs and guest lecturers to my course? 10. What happens when a student adds or drops my course? 11. How long will my students have access to my course material? 12. Will my courses ever expire or disappear from the system? 13. Can I reuse any course content from this semester? 14. How can I save student work and records when the semester ends? 15. How do I back up my course content? 16. When I back up a course, what information is lost/retained? 17. I create and use courses that are not listed in Banner (do not have a CRN or are not CRN eligible)? 18. How can I get Bb@GW support on campus? 19. What resources are available online for help with Bb@GW? 20. Can I remove courses from my course list? 21. Am I able to merge the rosters of a multi-section course?
Faculty and student accounts on Bb@GW are removed from the system 16 months after a user has been removed from the Banner system or 16 months after a user’s last login. In other words, if you leave your post at the University, and your entry is removed from Banner, your Bb@GW account will cease to exist after 16 months.
Extended Leave
If you are going to be on extended leave from the university, you should ensure that your courses are archived or exported to your local hard drive. Archiving and Exporting a course are done from the Control Panel of that course.
Either will create a .zip file on your local computer. Archiving includes student data and course content, and Exporting includes only course content. Both can be imported back into the system.
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Courses that exist in Banner and for which you are listed as the instructor will be automatically created in your Bb@GW account on the following schedule:
(This schedule will follow a similar pattern for future terms.)
Creating course content prior to courses being created by the Banner feed
Course content development is a time consuming and process that often requires advance planning and effort. In order to support faculty in their advance course development work, the following process has been established.
In Bb@GW, development courses are available to faculty to develop course content. After the Banner integration creates courses for a given term, content from development courses can be copied into the Banner generated course using Course Copy on the Control Panel of the development course.
The next FAQ explains how your development course is created.
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Go to the Control Panel of any course on your Blackboard Course List, then click on "More Tools..." (in the Course Tools section). From here, you can click on Create Development course. Once you choose your title and Submit, this course will immediately appear once you return to your Course List.
If, however, you do not have at least one course on your Course List, making the above process impossible, please send an email request to bbadmin@gwu.edu.
From the original course’s Control Panel, within Course Options, click on Course Copy. From here, you are able to copy all or some of the original course content into the desired destination course. When you are comfortable with the content in the destination course, you can then make the course “available” so that the enrolled students may view your content or interact with your course.
Bb@GW provides faculty a shared available resource, which means that collective space, is limited. Because Blackboard serves more than 2000 instructors at any given point, this means that each faculty member must manage their course as efficiently as possible. Here are some ideas to keep your course size small:
Due to space restrictions on the server, it is recommended that each instructor request creation of no more than three Development Courses. Exceptions to this guideline are granted on a case-by-case basis.
Please note: Faculty may store courses locally on their computer for future use. Using Archive and Export Course functionality, you can save .zip files on your local computer for later restoring into the system.
Every course that is created through Banner updates is, by default, set to “unavailable” to students. In other words, even though you can see the course, your students will not see the course on their list until you make it "available". You may make the course “available” to students who are registered for the course by doing the following:
1. Go into the course you wish to make available by clicking in the title from your Courses page. 2. Click on Control Panel on the bottom of the left-side course menu. 3. Within the Course Options, click on Settings, then Course Availability. 4. Make the course available by choosing “Yes”, click Submit. 5. Click OK on the Receipt page that follows.
The same path is taken to manually make the course “unavailable”. In step 4 above, use “No” in place of “Yes”. Official Courses automatically become “unavailable” to enrolled students one month beyond the last day of a given semester.
Note: All Banner generated courses will be set to “unavailable” to students one month following the end of a term.
The Banner information system will periodically update Bb@GW with student registration information. Therefore, your student roster will be available dynamically once the regular updates from Banner begin. When the course begins, however, you must manually make the course “available” to your students through the process noted in the question above.
Your students must have an active NetID (GW Mail Account) and be officially registered for your course in order to be listed in your Bb@GW roster.
As of January 5, 2004, instructors in any Blackboard@GW course may add TA's and Guest Lecturer users to your course(s). From the relevant course's Control Panel, under Course Tools is now a link entitled "More Tools...". The resulting page includes several new functionalities developed in-house for you to manage your course(s).
In order to add a TA to your course, you will need their NetID, or user@gwu.edu username. For a Guest Lecturer, once you request a Guest Lecturer user, you will be given a username and password to hand out to your intended guest(s).
Courses and corresponding rosters (generated through the Banner-to-Blackboard updates) will be automatically updated based on the Banner information available at the time of the update. In most circumstances the updates for Banner generated courses will occur nightly.
Students in your course who do not appear in the subsequent Banner update (e.g. they drop) will have their course status changed to “inactive”. They will no longer have access to your course.
Students that are set to “inactive” will be purged from your course at the conclusion of the drop/add period.
Students will have access to course material from the moment you make it "available" until one month after the last day of the classes for a given semester. You may, at any time, manually make your course “unavailable” and thus restrict student access.
Note: Students not registered for your course in Banner or those who drop your course will not have access to the course content in Bb@GW.
Students who drop a course will be set to an “inactive” status during the next Banner update, then removed ad the conclusion of the add/drop period.
In order to distribute system resources equitably, Courses created from Banner integration (Official Courses) in the Bb@GW system will be periodically deleted. Official Courses, those created through a Banner updates, will be deleted 16 months after the last day of classes for a given semester. Keep all course materials you plan to reuse in a Development Course.
Development Courses will not be automatically removed from the system. However, each development course consumes system resources and those you are not using should be exported (archived) or deleted.
It is strongly recommended that you keep copies of all course material in a safe location outside of Bb@GW. Faculty with excessive numbers of development courses may be required to export these courses so they can be deleted.
You can export courses from Bb@GW to your local desktop computer, by the use of the "Export Course" function in the Control Panel. Using this function will enable you to create a compressed file (".zip") containing the course material you choose to save.
Yes. There are several ways to reuse course content. You can use the “Export Course” function on the Control Panel to make a local copy of your course content, and then use the “Import Package” function later to upload the course content that you exported.
You can also use the “Course Copy” function from the Control Panel. This allows you to copy content from one course into a destination course. You should always keep course content files that you create on your own computer in its native form and local directory. You may upload these files as necessary into new courses as semesters approach.
Blackboard Learning System (Bb@GW) should not be used as an official repository of student work. Student work retention requirements of your school or program may require that you keep student work for one or more years. Faculty should export Bb@GW courses and student work to your local computer (or a departmental storage system for visiting or adjunct faculty – depending on department and school requirements).
In some cases, due to the need to retain student work for extended periods, faculty should consider printing (or requiring students to print), converting to PDF (or some other standard), or otherwise archiving materials to avoid problems with software incompatibilities in the future.
In short, due to the nature of software course materials exported from Blackboard today may not be readable or accessible in a future version of Blackboard (or any other software) two or more years from now.
Essentially, you should download any student files to your computer and then archive them in whatever manner you normally keep student work (on CD-R, Zip disk, etc.) in the native format. You should also keep student records, such as the Gradebook entries. This can be done using the Gradebook function from the Control Panel.
If you have kept student grades on Bb@GW, you may download from the Gradebook page the entire Gradebook and open it with Microsoft Excel, or a compatible spreadsheet program.
There are several ways to back up course content. You should always keep course content files that you create on your own computer in its native form and local directory. You can also use the “Export Course” function on the Control Panel to make a local copy of your course content, and then use the “Import Package” function later to re-upload the course content that you exported.
The following information will be included in your exported course:
* Course Settings * Discussion Topics * Gradebook items but not student records * Groups without users associated with them * Tests, surveys, and question pools without student results.
As of January 5, 2004, instructors and appointed staff can request the creation of a "Blackboard Special Use" course, otherwise known as BbSU. Using the system through the link below, instructors can
First Point of Contact for faculty and student support:
ISS Helpdesk
http://helpdesk.gwu.edu; ithelp@gwu.edu; 202-994-5530 option 2
Support you can receive from the Helpdesk:
• Student support • Technical Support – desktop computer, browser software, other software • Technical Problem reporting – Blackboard errors, outages, or other issues
Faculty Instructional Support:
Center for Instructional Design and Development / Instructional Technology Lab
http://itl.gwu.edu/; itl@gwu.edu; 202-994-0485
Visit http://cidd.gwu.edu/workshops for further details and a schedule of workshops and events. In addition to the how-to workshops, the ITL offers course design lab sessions where you can work on your own course materials or get more hands-on guided practice while using Bb@GW.
Bb@GW online guides, FAQ, and documentation can be found by visiting http://www.gwu.edu/~bbnews.
Visit http://cidd.gwu.edu/ for a schedule of workshops offered through the ITL.
Blackboard Inc. offers resources for faculty at http://company.blackboard.com/docs/cp/learning_system/release6/instructor/. A direct link to the pdf manual is here : http://www.blackboard.com/docs/r6/instructor/bbls_rel6_instructor.pdf/.
As of January 5, 2004, instructors in any Blackboard@GW course may delete that course from their course list. From the relevant course's Control Panel, under Course Tools is now a link entitled "More Tools...". The resulting page includes several new functionalities developed in-house for you to manage your course(s).
Click on Delete Course, and confirm your intent to delete. Once done, you will be re-directed to your course list, and the target course will no longer be present.
As of January 5, 2004, instructors in any Blackboard@GW course may merge the rosters of any of their courses. From any of your course's Control Panel, under Course Tools is now a link entitled "More Tools...". The resulting page includes several new functionalities developed in-house for you to manage your course(s).
Click on Merge Course Rosters. You will be presented with a list of your courses and check boxes. Choose up to seven course rosters to merge. The result is a new course on your list that contains all of the students from the selected courses. You may also use the Synchronize Course Rosters if your rosters from individual sections change for any reason.
NOTE: This functionality DOES NOT MERGE COURSE CONTENT.
