FAQs - Administering your site / Blackboard / University Services / The University of Newcastle, Australia

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FAQs: Administering Your Site

These FAQs address issues dealing with the administration of your Blackboard course site. If you have a question that is not addressed here check the Blackboard Guides, or e-mail your question to online-support@newcastle.edu.au

How are instructors kept informed about Blackboard related issues?

Are there times when Blackboard is unavailable?

What's the main differences between the student and instructor "course views"?

What do I do with my Blackboard course site at the end of semester/trimester?

Why are the courses I taught last semester still listed?

How do I copy content from an old course into a new course?

Why can't I just use the Recycle Course option?

Can I copy or move documents from one area of my Blackboard course site to another?

Do I need to archive my old course?

What's the difference between the "Export Course" and "Archive Course" options?

Can I find out how often students are accessing parts of my Blackboard course site?

Q. Are there times when Blackboard is unavailable?

Scheduled Downtimes
All scheduled Blackboard downtime will be advised 7 days beforehand to the Blackboard "Announcement" area.

Scheduled downtime for 2004 - Regular downtime is scheduled for the Friday of the 3rd week of every month from 7.15am-8.30am AEST for system maintenance.

The dates this will fall on are: 17 September 2004, 22 October 2004, 19 November 2004 and 17 December 2004.

Unscheduled Downtimes
Sometimes there are unplanned interruptions to service. If Blackboard does not respond, check the University's Systems Status webpage for details of what is happening, and when Blackboard is expected to be back online.

Q. What's the main differences between the student and instructor "course views"?

Leaving aside the "Control Panel", there are a number of differences between the student's view of a course, and the instructor's view.

Menu Item	Differences between Instructors and Students
Communication areas	"Discussion Board": as this is the development area for instructors as well as the participation area, instructors have additional settings "Forums": additional elements under the "show options" tab "Chat": students have fewer tab functions and no directional functions in the class "chat", while the "virtual class" in the Group areas virtually mirrors the instructor's version of the tool
Student Tools	"Student Home Page": only students have a home page displayed (although as an instructor you can create one it is not displayed for students to see) "Digital Drop Box": under "Tools" for students, in the Control Panel for instructors (instructors and students have slightly different functionality) "Calendar" (Events): as an Instructor you can create course-specific "tasks" and "events", however only students see the instructor-created tasks, while both instructors and students can see the events

Q. What do I do with my Blackboard course site at the end of semester/trimester?

Once you're sure your students are finished using your Blackboard course site, and after whatever period of time you feel is appropriate, you will probably want to inactivate your site. This means making your site unavailable to students and guests - the site will remain on the server and accessible to you and other instructors for review or update.

If you choose not to make your site unavailable, it will remain visible and accessible to the students enrolled in the course indefinitely. Some students may appreciate this, while others may find it confusing to continue to see their old courses listed on their "My Blackboard" screen in future semesters / trimesters.

The Blackboard System Administrators make a copy of the entire Blackboard system at the end of each year. This will be filed away for several years - probably forever.

Q. Why are the courses I taught last semester still listed?

All enrolled users of a course will continue to see the course listed on their "My Institution" screen, and via the Course Catalog, whilst the "Course Availability" option is set to "Yes".

To make a course unavailable:

open the . Select Settings (within the "Course Options" area), then Course Availability. Select No, then .

Students will no longer have access to the course and it will not appear in the students’ course listings or the course catalog. The course will however be listed as [Unavailable] in your course listing - allowing you (as the instructor) continued access to the course (to pull material or check grades, etc).

If you no longer want courses from previous semesters listed, you can request that they be removed from the Blackboard system. HOWEVER, once a course has been removed from Blackboard, there is no way for you (or us) to access that course – it is gone for good.

Q. Do I need to archive my old course?

Course sites are maintained on the Blackboard server indefinitely at Newcastle and are only deleted at the request of the instructor. If an instructor's primary concern for archiving a site is access to course materials, there's no need to worry about archiving a site - you will continue to have access to it.

Any archive files created from this process are in IMS format (IMS is a set of international standards for online learning objects). In order for the archived course site to be reused, it has to be imported back into Blackboard (or another IMS compatible course management system). You cannot use the archived file to re-build a course site on a web server.

Differences between the "Archive Course" and "Export Course" options
The "Archive Course" function includes important information other than course content that you may want to keep for your records. These items include, interaction within the discussion board, grade book, Chat room archives, course statistics, course calendar and tasks. The "Export Course" function does not include any user interactions with the course—it only includes the content of the course.

Steps for archiving your course

If you do want to archive your course site follow these steps:

open the , select Course Utilities in the "Course Options" section, then Archive Course.
on the "Archive Course" screen,
- check all information you would like to archive in "Section 1 (Content Areas)". Typically this would include "Contents", "Settings", "Assessments & Pools". If you are unsure, check off all the options
- select the format to be used for the archive from "Section 2 (Package Format)"
- Click . A confirmation screen will be displayed. Click on the link to download the exported course to your computer.
depending on the size of the course site, it may take Blackboard several minutes to prepare the archive file for downloading. When it is ready for downloading, you will see a "Receipt" heading on the "Archive Course" page and, underneath it, a link - "Click here to download the exported course site". Click on the link and save to your computer.
Tip - If your course is very large, it may take Blackboard longer to prepare the archive file for downloading. This could cause your browser to time out and an error message to appear. If this occurs you will need to note any error message or information and contact the Blackboard Systems Administrator.

Important

Gradebook information does not export with the rest of the course materials. If you wish to retain the gradebook information, you should export it to an Excel spreadsheet before archiving the course.