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Author: Tasha Hussey

Creating Blackboard Discussion Board Forums

Discussion Boards allow instructors to have asynchronous conversations in a Blackboard course.  Within Discussion Boards, students can engage with Forums posted by the instructor and reply to other students.

A Forum is a question or prompt presented to students, while a Thread is an individual contribution, or response, to the Forum. A Forum holds all the related Threads (or posts) of a given topic.

  1. Click the (+) symbol from the course menu, then select Tool Link.
    Screenshot of Click the (+) symbol from the course menu, then select Tool Link.
  2. In the Name field enter Discussion Board.
  3. In the Type field, select Discussion Board.
  4. Enable the option to make the tool Available to Users.
    Add Discussion Board Tool Link
  5. Click Submit.
  6. Click the Discussion Board link you just created.
    Screenshot of Click the Discussion Board link you just created.
  7. On the right, click Create Forum.
    Screenshot of click Create Forum.
  8. Enter a name and an optional description.
    Screenshot of Enter a name and an optional description.
  9. In the Forum Availability section, set the availability and date restrictions as desired.
  10. In the Forum Settings section, select your preferred options.
  11. Click Submit.

For additional information, view the Forums article.

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This article was created and is maintained by the Office of Academic Technology.

If you have found an error in this article, or if you need assistance incorporating this article into your course, please contact an Educational Technologist.

Importing Course Content into Blackboard

You can import course content packages into Blackboard.  If you have exported/archived a previous course, you can import the contents into a new course shell.

A course import package is a ZIP file of exported course content. When you import a course package into an existing course, the content of the package is copied into the existing course. Import packages don’t include student enrollments or data, such as discussion activity and grades.

You don’t want to upload an exported course package that you’ve edited after it was created and downloaded. If you open the ZIP file and change any of the files in the exported course package, the result will be unstable and unpredictable behavior when the course is imported.

To learn more, view this Import a course package article.

[ht_message style=”alert” title=”” show_icon=”true” id=”” class=”” style=”” ]Go here to learn about Exporting or Archiving a Course. [/ht_message]

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This article was created and is maintained by the Office of Academic Technology.

If you need assistance incorporating this article in your course, please contact an Educational Technologist.

Creating Content Items

Folders are a type of container that you can use to organize content. You create folders in existing content areas, learning modules, lesson plans, or other folders. After you create a folder, you can add content and additional sub-folders to it.

To learn more, view the Create a content folder article.

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This article was created and is maintained by the Office of Academic Technology.

If you need assistance incorporating this article in your course, please contact an Educational Technologist.

Creating Surveys

You can use tests and surveys to measure student knowledge, gauge progress, and gather information from students.

To learn more about creating a survey, view the Create a test or survey and add questions article.

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This article was created and is maintained by the Office of Academic Technology. 

If you have found an error in this article or if you need assistance incorporating this article in your course, please contact the Educational Technology Support.

Creating Rubrics in Blackboard

Faculty can create and edit rubrics in their Blackboard courses. Rubrics consist of rows and columns. The rows correspond to the criteria. The columns correspond to the level of achievement that describes each criterion.  After faculty has created a rubric, the rubic can be associated with course content.

For additional information, view the Create a rubric article and watch the video below.

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This article was created and is maintained by the Office of Academic Technology.

If you need assistance incorporating this article in your course, please contact an Educational Technologist.

Downloading Assignment Submissions

You can download assignment submissions to review them offline. Choose to download all or only selected submissions as a single ZIP file. Unzip or expand the file to view the contents. Each submission is saved as a separate file.

To learn more, view this Download Assignments article.

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This article was created and is maintained by the Office of Academic Technology. 

If you have found an error in this article or if you need assistance incorporating this article into your course, please contact an Educational Technologist.

Grading Assignments

You can view and grade student submissions directly in your web browser, using Blackboard’s annotation tools to provide comments, highlight text, and draw illustrations directly on the document.

To learn more click BB Annotate to read the article.

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This article was created and is maintained by the Office of Academic Technology.

If you have found an error in this article, or if you need assistance incorporating this article into your course, please contact an Educational Technologist.

Enabling SafeAssignment™ (Plagiarism Prevention Service)

SafeAssign™ is a plagiarism prevention service offered through Blackboard. This service can help prevent plagiarism by detecting unoriginal content in student papers.

To learn more click Enabling SafeAssignment to read the article.

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This article was created and is maintained by the Office of Academic Technology.

If you have found an error in this article, or if you need assistance incorporating this article into your course, please contact an Educational Technologist .

Creating Assignments

With assignments, you can create coursework and manage the grades and feedback for each student separately. You can create assignments in content areas, learning modules, lesson plans, and folders.

To learn more, view this Create and Edit Assignments article.

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This article was created and is maintained by the Office of Academic Technology.

If you have found an error in this article, or if you need assistance incorporating this article into your course, please contact an Educational Technologist.

Color Coding in the Blackboard Grade Center

You can create rules to apply color to the cells in the Blackboard Grade Center, either by grade or status. Color in the Grade Center provides visual indicators to help you interpret information quickly. For example, you can use yellow to highlight graded items with failing scores so that students and columns that require attention are prominent.

For additional information, view the Color Code the Grade Data article.

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This article was created and is maintained by the Office of Academic Technology.

If you need assistance incorporating this article in your course, please contact an Educational Technologist.