FA 08 Blackboard Course Shells & Student Batch Enrollment

Information about Copying Content into your FA 08 Blackboard Course Shell(s) and Automatic Student Enrollments in your FA 08 Bb Courses . . .

Before every new semester begins, our NOVA Blackboard administrator, Michelle Gee (mgee@nvcc.edu), creates Blackboard course shells for each course listed in the Schedule of Classes and associates each with the appropriate faculty member who will be teaching that course, if the faculty member has been designated. All of the Bb course shells for FA 08 have been created.

Now is the time for you to copy your old course content into your FA 08 Bb course shell(s) if you need that content. A video for how to copy course content from one Bb course to another can be found at http://tac.nvcc.edu/blackboard/bb7faculty/copycourse.html

Other important information:

1. Our NOVA Blackboard administrator continues to batch enroll your students into your Blackboard FA 08 courses.

2. The initial enrolllment of students begins on Aug 19 and continues every two days until classes begin. The first two weeks of classes student enrollments are processed daily. After that point, students are processed every other day.

3. Remember that even after your students are enrolled, you must make your FA 08 Bb7 course “Available.” Enrolled students will not be able to participate in your courses until you make them “available.”

4. To make a Bb FA 08 course available, go to the Control Panel > Course Options > Settings > Course Availability > Set Availability

5. After you log into Blackboard, if you do not see your Blackboard course shells on the opening page, then contact Michelle Gee (mgee@nvcc.edu), so she can associate that course with your name.

From time to time, the VCCS may have to make some updates to the new Bb7 servers. Please remember that if you cannot get into Blackboard, close your browser and open the browser again, retype the URL, and click enter.

If you want to leave a comment here, go to the green bar at the end of this posted entry and click on “Comments.” You can then write your comment or question and click on the orange “Publish Your Comment” button. I will respond.

Blackboard 6 Servers Are Shutting Down

Important Blackboard 6 Notice from the VCCS . . .

The Virginia Community College System (VCCS) is planning to shut-down the Blackboard 6 servers permanently on Friday, January 25. If you have any old Blackboard courses or organizations on the Bb 6 servers and you want to keep their content, you have until Friday, January 25 to export/import that content from Bb6 to Bb7. Remember that all of your Bb course and organization content from SP 07, SU 07, and FA 07 has already been migrated to the Blackboard 7 servers.

If you need another Bb 7 course or organization shell to use so you can complete the export/import process for old courses, send our NOVA Bb Administrator an email requesting the Bb 7 course shell (Michelle Gee mgee@nvcc.edu). Remember that you already have your SP 08 Bb course shells in Bb 7 and many of you have already completed the export/import process from Bb6 to Bb7 for those courses.

Use the print or video demo to help you move any content from the Bb6 servers to the Bb7 servers.

• Use the print directions found at http://www.nvcc.edu/home/nvsimpc/bb/exportimport.mht or
• Use the video demo found at http://tac.nvcc.edu/robert/blackboard6_7/blackboard7.html
• You need the Flash Player plug-in for the video to work. If you are using the most recent Explorer, it comes with Flash. If you need to download it, you can get it at http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash&ogn=EN_US-gntray_dl_getflashplayer or contact your campus Information Technology Manager.

Finally, make sure you have made your SP 08 Bb7 course “Available” after your students are enrolled. Enrolled students will not be able to participate in your courses until you make them “Available.”

To make a Bb SP 08 course available, go to the Control Panel > Course Options > Settings > Course Availability > Set Availability. Click the button next to the Yes under Set Availability and click submit.

Be sure to leaave any comments by clicking on the Comments link below this entry.

Automatic Student Enrollments in your Sp 08 Blackboard Courses

Automatic Enrollment of your Students in SP 08 Bb7 Courses Has Begun. . .

The good news is that now our NOVA Blackboard administrator has been given the okay to batch enroll our students into our Blackboard 7 SP 08 courses. As noted in previous Blackboard communications, the batch enrollment of students began yesterday on January 10. It will continue through the end of the day today, January 11. We thank you for your patience as everyone is working as fast as possible to complete this task.

Remember that even after the students are enrolled, you must make your SP 08 Bb7 course “Available.” Enrolled students will not be able to participate in your courses until you make them “Available.”

To make a Bb SP 08 course available, go to the Control Panel > Course Options > Settings > Course Availability > Set Availability.

From time to time, the VCCS may have to make some updates to the new Bb7 servers. Please remember that if you cannot get into Blackboard, when you try again, be sure to open the browser again, retype the URL, and click enter.

If you want to leave a comment to this blog entry, go to the green bar at the end of this posted entry and click on “Comments.” You can then write your comment or question and click on the orange “Publish Your Comment” button. I will respond.

Blackboard 7 migration is almost completed!

the latest on Bb 7 . . . .

The Blackboard 7 migration has been ongoing during the holidays. As of today, the following has been completed:

All faculty have Spring 08 Blackboard course shells for use for their SP 08 courses. If you discover that you do not have a Bb course shell for one of your courses and you need one, please contact Michelle Gee (mgee@nvcc.edu ), so she can associate the shell with your name.

Use the print or video demo to help you move any content into these Bb 7 SP 08 course shells.

• Use the print directions found at http://www.nvcc.edu/home/nvsimpc/bb/exportimport.mht or
• Use the video demo found at http://tac.nvcc.edu/robert/blackboard6_7/blackboard7.html
  You need the Flash Player plug-in for the video to work. If you are using the most recent Explorer, it comes with Flash. If you need to download it, you can get it at http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash&ogn=EN_US-gntray_dl_getflashplayer or contact your campus Information Technology Manager.
  

All faculty and staff must export/import their materials into their Bb 7 SP 08 courses because of the new method for creating courses in Bb 7. If you experience any major problems, please contact Michelle Gee or me.

All Fall 07 Blackboard courses have been migrated to the Bb 7 servers. Please check out those courses if you still are using them to be sure that everything migrated correctly. Be sure that all of your students, discussion forums, assignments, information, etc. were migrated correctly.

Faculty, staff, and students should now use My Nova on the NOVA homepage or http://learn.vccs.edu to access their past SP 07, SU 07, and FA 07 Bb courses if they need to use any of these. Students completing incompletes for SU 07 or FA 07 or completing an ELI course for those semesters should be using the new Bb 7 servers now. The usernames and passwords remain the same.

All Fall 07 Blackboard courses on the Bb6 servers have been made unavailable to your students now. DO NOT make them available and continue to use them. We do not know when the VCCS staff are shutting down the servers and the servers are no longer supported. You can still export/import any materials you want from there if something is missing in Bb 7.

Blackboard course organizations were migrated last night. Michelle Gee, our NOVA Blackboard administrator, has made all of the NOVA organizations available today. Organization content system content has NOT been migrated.

By January 10, our NOVA Blackboard administrator will automatically enroll your students in your SP 08 Bb 7 courses.

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.

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.
   
   

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.