Student Accounts for Faculty and Staff in Blackboard

Your "student" account is now working in Blackboard.
For all faculty and staff with Blackboard accounts, the VCCS has activated your "student" account. To use your student account, you will need to do the following:

1. As faculty or staff, go into your course through My NOVA or directly through the Blackboard login page - http://learn.vccs.edu/
2. Add username_student (remember username=your username in Bb)to your course roster by going into the Control Panel>User Management>Enroll User>enter username_student in the Search box>click Search>check Add box next to user> click Submit>click OK.
3. Log out of Blackboard.
4. Log into Blackboard using the Blackboard direct login - http://learn.vccs.edu Your student account will NOT work by logging into Blackboard through My NOVA.
5. When the Blackboard portal page opens, you will be looking at the portal page as a student would see it.

The student account allows you to see your course as your students see it and to see some of the features that only students have, such as the student webpage. This may be helpful as you build your Blackboard course or add assignments to existing courses. It is also very useful for demonstrating the student only features, too.

Student Accounts for Faculty & Staff Using Blackboard

Soon all faculty & staff with Blackboard courses will have a student account!

As of Sunday, February 8, in addition to your faculty/staff account, all faculty and staff with Blackboard courses will have a student account to use for demonstration and course testing purposes.

The format for the account is

• Username - username_student - For example, if I am John Doe, a faculty member, with a VCCS username of nvjdoe, then my related "student" account is nvjdoe_student.
• Password -same as your password you have now when you log into Blackboard as a faculty or staff.

NOTE: As of today, the VCCS started including student IDs with the nightly download to Blackboard. So student IDs are now available in the field that by default already existed in the Grade Center.

Blackboard New Features

Blackboard Grade Center
The biggest change in Blackboard 8 is the Grade Center. It has a new look and feel with many new features. NOVA's Blackboard Support Website for Faculty and Staff has many helpful resources for you to learn how to use the new Grade Center. Here you will find a TAC Quick Guide, video and selected Blackboard print documents. TAC is offering workshops on all of our campuses titled "What's New in Blackboard" that features the tips and tricks of using the Blackboard Grade Center. Be sure to register!

Blackboard 8.0 Issues

Blackboard 8.0 was successfully installed on January 2, 2009.
Since the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) has successfully installed Bb 8, the VCCS has been working out some kinks. We have had several reports involving partial copies of Blackboard exams, quizzes, assignments for the Spring 2009 semester. For example, when a course with four exams was copied, only two of the exams were copied with exam questions. The other two were there, but blank.

We urge you to check your courses now to see if your assessments, ssurveys and assignments are complete and in place. It is very important to correct this before students attempt to take tests, especially in our the Testing Centers.