Thursday, December 20, 2007

Change of URL for Blackboard 7

Accessing Blackboard 7

Beginning today, Thursday, December 20, when you click on My Nova on the NOVA homepage, you will access Blackboard 7. You will notice a new header for this version. If you use http://learn.vccs.edu to access Blackboard, you will now access Blackboard 7 at that address.

If you want access to your Blackboard 6 courses, you will access them at http://bb6.vccs.edu If you cannot access the URL, be sure to close your browser, open it again, retype the URL (be sure that NO www is in the URL), and hit enter. The same username and password work in both Bb6 and Bb7.

Within the next two weeks, all FA 07 Bb 6 courses will be migrated to Bb 7 along with your students and grades. This will allow students to continue to complete any incomplete FA 07 courses on the new Blackboard 7 servers.

Remember that SP 08 Blackboard 7 shells have already been created so you can export/import materials from previous courses into your SP 08 Bb7 shells if you want to do so now.

Also, note that year-old Blackboard courses are automatically archived and deleted by the Virginia Community College System at the end of every semester. So Fall 06 Bb courses are being deleted by default now by not being migrated to the Bb7 servers.

Friday, December 14, 2007

More Blackboard 7 News

Announcing some good news . . .

With the arrival of Blackboard version 7, all faculty and staff now automatically have Blackboard user accounts and all faculty have Blackboard shells for every course for the SP 08 semester. These Blackboard shells are generated as “unavailable” so no student can see any of those shells unless a faculty member develops them and makes them available. However, if faculty want to use them for support for a classroom course, for a hybrid course, or for a distance course, they can simply begin to develop the shell without having to request it.

Below are some reminders for those currently using Blackboard:

  1. Beginning December 20 when students and faculty click My Nova, they will access Bb 7 and NOT Bb 6. If students have an incomplete and need to continue working on their FA 07 course or if they are enrolled in an ELI course that continues beyond December 20, students will either see their course in Bb 7 or be told to go to http://bb6.vccs.edu/ to find their course.
  2. January 10 all students will be batch enrolled into SP 08 Blackboard courses. They will not have access to SP 08 Bb courses until that time and only if the faculty has made the course available.
  3. All faculty and staff can be working on their SP 08 Blackboard courses in Bb 7 right now. Until December 20, use the following URL to access your SP 08 Blackboard course shell – http://bb7.vccs.edu/ Use the same username and password that you currently use with your Bb 6 courses.
  4. To move content into your current SP 08 Blackboard course shell from previous semesters use the Export/Import feature. Follow the directions posted at http://www.nvcc.edu/home/nvsimpc/bb/exportimport.mht or view the video demo at http://tac.nvcc.edu/robert/blackboard6_7/blackboard7.html . ALL faculty must now do their own export/import because of the new VCCS method of creating Bb course shells.
  5. Blackboard organizations will be migrated to Blackboard 7 beginning December 20 and for the following several weeks. The migration will be completed for all VCCS colleges during this time. Once your organization has been moved, you will find it by clicking on My Nova.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

A Few More Notes on the Blackboard 7 Migration

Take Note . . .

Remember - Faculty will be able to work on their SP 08 Blackboard course shells in Bb7 and view FA 07 courses on both systems throughout the entire migration period. To access your SP 08 Bb7 course shell, use http://bb7.vccs.edu until December 20 and then use My Nova or http://learn.vccs.edu.

All faculty and staff who want to move content from a previous Blackboard course shell into their SP 08 Blackboard course shell must use the export/import feature and move the content themselves.

Please inform your students with incompletes in FA 07 Blackboard courses or in ELI courses that continue beyond December 20, that they will experience a short period (15 minutes to 2 hours) sometime in that two week period where their course will not be available. We will not be able to tell them exactly which day that will be because the VCCS is migrating all of the VCCS courses at once during that time period.

After January 4, Bb 6 may no longer be available, so if faculty have incompletes for students from prior semesters and want to keep a record of their grades in Blackboard, you will need to export the gradebook into an Excel spreadsheet to keep a record.

If you want to use a single Bb course site for multiple sections (i.e. nursing) or courses, such as combined ADJ107/SOC236, you will need to contact Michelle Gee mgee@nvcc.edu , so Michelle can setup a special batch enrollment.

For ENG 111/9, you will now see two courses in Bb 7 – one for ENG 111 and one for ENG 09. If you do not want to have the two different Blackboard courses, then keep ENG 09 unavailable and use only the ENG 111.

More on the Blackboard 7 Migration

Important New Information about Blackboard Courses!

  1. Beginning December 20 when students click My Nova, they will access Bb 7 and NOT Bb 6. If students have an incomplete and need to continue working on their FA 07 course or if they are enrolled in an ELI course that continues beyond December 20, students will either see their course in Bb 7 or be told to go to http://bb6.vccs.edu/ to find their course.
  2. Beginning December 20 and for the following two weeks, the VCCS will be migrating all FA 07 courses with students and grades included into Bb 7. For students still participating in a FA07 course, it will only be unavailable for a short period of time when it is actually being migrated from Bb6 to Bb7 – 15 minutes to 2 hours on one day during the two week migration window. This allows faculty to have access to this content as well as students with incompletes.
  3. Faculty will be able to view FA 07 courses on both systems throughout the migration and work on SP 08 Blackboard course shells throughout the entire time, but during and after FA 07 courses are migrated to Bb7, they will be made unavailable on Bb6 and the title will be changed to say something like “MOVED TO Bb7,” so no changes can be made in Bb6 version.
  4. January 10 all students will be batch enrolled into SP 08 Blackboard courses. They will not have access to SP 08 Bb courses until that time and only if the faculty has made the course available.
  5. All faculty and staff can be working on their SP 08 Blackboard courses in Bb 7 right now. The migration of FA 07 Bb6 courses into Bb7 will not affect the use of Bb7 for working on your SP 08 Blackboard course shell. Until December 20, use the following URL – http://bb7.vccs.edu/ to access your SP 08 Bb couse shell. Use the same username and password that you currently use with your Bb 6 courses.
  6. To move content into your current SP 08 Blackboard course shell from previous semesters use the Export/Import feature. Follow the directions posted at http://www.nvcc.edu/home/nvsimpc/bb/exportimport.mht or view the video demo at http://tac.nvcc.edu/robert/blackboard6_7/blackboard7.html ALL faculty must now do their own export/import because of the new method of creating Bb course shells.
  7. After December 20, you can use My Nova on the NOVA homepage or http://learn.vccs.edu to access your SP 08 Bb course shells. If for any reason, you need to access Bb courses from previous semesters, you will use http://bb6.vccs.edu/ to access them.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Export/Import Process for Moving Bb Course Materials into Your SP 08 Bb 7 Course Shell

Good news! A Blackboard course shell has been created for all Spring 2008 courses. Most faculty and staff should see a SP 08 Blackboard course listed on the opening Blackboard7 page after you sign in if a course has been associated with you in NovaConnect. This shell is yours to explore and use; it is always unavailable to others until you make it available and add users to the Blackboard course. This spring semester will be a good time for those who have not used Blackboard to get started. Training sessions will be offered on all campuses. Check the TAC site in January to register for training.

To move the content from a previous SP 07, SU 07, or FA 07 Blackboard course into the new SP 08 Blackboard7 course shell, please follow these directions to help you to do this.

The directions will demonstrate how to export course materials from Blackboard6 and import course materials into your new SP 08 Blackboard7 course shell. These same directions can be used to export course materials from a SP 07 or SU 07 Blackboard course already in the new Blackboard7 to the SP 08 Blackboard7 course shell.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

What's New in Blackboard 7 Training

Now is the time to explore the latest version of Blackboard - Blackboard 7! If you had a SP 07 or SU 07 Blackboard course, you will find it in the new Blackboard 7. To explore Blackboard 7, you will need to use the temporary URL - http://bb7.vccs.edu/ .

Blackboard 7 training for current Blackboard users is currently taking place on the all of the campuses. The title of the training session is "What's New in Blackboard 7." You can register for any session on any campus by clicking the online TAC Training Registration.

Remember that to use Blackboard 7, you must click on Blackboard 7 temporary URL .

After December 20, Blackboard 7 will have its permanent URL at http://learn.vccs.edu/ and the current version of Blackboard - Blackboard 6 -being used this Fall 2007 will be located at http://bb6.vccs.edu/ until the end of January 2008.

Remember that your current Fall 2007 Blackboard courses remain on the Blackboard 6 servers and can continue to be accessed through My NOVA.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Blackboard 7.3 has arrived!

Welcome to Blackboard 7.3. The Virginia Community College System (VCCS) has successfully implemented the Blackboard 7.3 Enterprise version. After 9:00 a.m. on Monday, November 5, faculty and staff will be able to access Blackboard 7.3 by going to the temporary URL - http://bb7.vccs.edu/.


What you need to know

  1. You will continue to use Blackboard 6 with your students for the rest of Fall semester by using the URL learn.vccs.edu or by clicking on my NOVA on the NOVA website, as you currently do.
  2. November 5 after 9:00 a.m., Blackboard 7.3 is available to only faculty and staff at the temporary URL - http://bb7.vccs.edu/
  3. Your username and password are the same for both Blackboard 6 and Blackboard 7.3; they have not changed.
  4. December 20, 2007, students will have access to Blackboard 7.3 through My NOVA and the URL http://learn.vccs.edu/.
  5. December 20, 2007, the official URL for Blackboard 7.3 will become learn.vccs.edu, the temporary URL bb7.vcc.edu will disappear, and Blackboard 6 will be accessed through bb6.vccs.edu.
  6. Spring 2007 and Summer 2007 courses have been migrated to the new Blackboard 7.3. Fall 2007 courses will be migrated to the new system after December 20.
  7. After December 20, 2007, courses that were set up as organizations will be migrated to Blackboard 7.3.
  8. After December 20, 2007, to the Content System will be restored.
  9. The opening page of Blackboard will not have all the modules on it that it had before. NOVA is in the process restoring all the modules by Thanksgiving.
  10. The only building block available is Wimba. During the Spring 2008 semester, the VCCS will be working on the following building blocks: Learning Objects (this includes blogs and wikis), Classtop, iTunes U, and SafeAssign. More to come later on these!

Important Note: By mid-November, the NOVA Blackboard administrator will have created course shells for all Spring 2008 courses. These shells will be empty and will not contain any copied content. You will now have the choice of adding new content, or exporting/importing content from your previous Blackboard courses into the course shells. Instructions for how to do this will be provided at that time.

What you need to do

  1. Check your courses that were migrated to the new servers to see some of the new features in Blackboard 7.3. The Spring 2007 and Summer 2007 courses only were migrated to the new system. There are no student enrollments in these courses, so there are no grades or work.
  2. Identify any issues involving the imported courses and either enter comments in this blog or email Cathy Simpson at TAC.
  3. Become familiar with the Instructor Manual located in Help box on your course Control Panel.
  4. Check the TAC site next week to register for face-to-face training to take place this month on your campus. The training sessions will focus on the new features. This initial training is for those currently using Blackboard.
  5. After mid-November, export/import Fall 2007 or Spring 2007 Blackboard courses into your Spring 2008 course shell or begin to add new content to build your SP 2008 Blackboard courses.
  6. Check this blog regularly for updates that will be posted here.

Issues that have already been identified

  1. There are some known problems with migrated Wimba content. The VCCS is working on this.
  2. Links you had to the Content System will not work until after December 20.
  3. The Control Panel can be slow to load; Blackboard is working on this.

Some of the new Blackboard features

You will find several new instructional features in Blackboard 7.3, including Adaptive Release, which provides instructors the ability to create custom learning paths through course content and activities, and the Performance Dashboard, a tool for tracking student progress across all course activities. Blackboard Forums (discussion boards) have been completely redesigned to include options for grading, moderation, and peer review, and instructors planning to use discussions are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the new forum design prior to the start of the term. Other enhancements include:

  • The ability to import test questions created outside of Blackboard
  • The ability to import and export individual tests
  • Visual Text Box Editor (VTBE) support for MAC users
  • Second language support for eight languages
  • Tutorial movies designed to help users learn Blackboard
  • Windows Vista and Office 2007 compatible

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Social Networking - Blogs

Blogs can be very useful to share information with others. The subject of this blog is exploring blogging in learning and teaching. I want to share today some interesting blogs that I recently learned about:

Now it is your turn. Please feel free to add to this list of useful blogs for faculty who are using technology in learning and teaching.