Fall 2008 Workshops

We're holding a series of workshops for faculty this fall about using Blackboard effectively. Learn all about Blackboard and its features. The complete schedule is available here.

Discussion Board

Grading settings are now available when creating or modifying a forum in a course, which means that the gradebook can now contain discussion board forums. When adding a new forum to a course, there will be an option allowing you to enable grading.

Discussion Board Statistics

Discussion Board Statistics are now a part of the Performance Dashboard. The total number of forums in which the user has participated is displayed for each user in this column. Clicking on the number in this column directs the instructor to a user detail page that displays links to all forums in which the user has participated and usage statistics for the user in each forum. Statistics displayed include:

• total posts
• date of last post
• average post length
• minimum and maximum post lengths
• average post position

Additionally, the instructor can grade discussion board participation from this page.

Rate Posting

Post rating allows users to rate posts in the forum on a scale of one to five stars. When enabled, post rating is a simple yet effective tool for peer review.

Enhancements of Existing Features

• Instructors can copy Discussion Board forums to the same Discussion Board or to another Discussion Board in the course.
• Users can save posts as drafts, allowing them to work on a post over more than one Blackboard session until the post is ready for publishing.
• Instructors now have an availability option for all forums on the Add/Modify Forum page. The availability option replaces the functionality of archiving forums.
• Instructors can now "lock" a forum to prevent additional posts, but allow users to read existing threads.

Assessments - Multiple Attempts

Assessments may now be set to allow unlimited attempts or a specific number of attempts. The Gradebook displays all of the attempts. The instructor may choose to clear (or delete) the last attempt, first attempt, highest attempt, lowest attempt, or all attempts within a specified date range. This action may be performed by item (for all students at once) or by user (for a specific user).

Test and Survey Import/Export

The Test and Survey Managers have been enhanced to allow for importing and exporting, much like the Pool Manager. Users can export the test or survey package to their local computer and then to another course.

Extra Credit

When creating a test, questions may now be marked as extra credit only. This means that the points possible for the entire test will not include the points possible for that question. If the question is answered correctly, the question points will be added to the points correct, but if the question is answered incorrectly, there is no score penalty.

Customized Feedback

Feedback options were previously organized into four groups: score only, score + detailed results, all of the above + correct answers, and all of the above + detailed results, all of the above + feedback. These options have been ungrouped so that users may select any combination of the score, submitted answers, correct answers, and feedback to be displayed to the student at the end of an assessment.