IT’s Academic - Blackboard Archives

Lunch and Learn: Dennis Hood on Blackboard 2011

2011-05-05T13:20:57Z

At the Lunch and Learn on April 27th, 2011, Dennis Hood spoke about what Blackboard users should expect from the latest version of Blackboard at Princeton. He demonstrated the cosmetic and functional changes that will come after the upgrade in June. Blackboard 2011 offers more straightforward navigation, tools for increased productivity with less clicks, and a cleaner look and feel.

A few changes were made in order to make the interface more friendly. In the new Blackboard, your name will again appear at the top of the page when you log in. Blackboard removed this feature in the previous release, but it reappears in this upgrade. The color of links in the page has been tweaked to improve legibility. Some people have reported confusion in the previous release about the menu-hide and menu-collapse features, and as a result, the handles for these features have been made more prominent.

Other changes focused on functional improvements. You can now choose to keep announcements ordered by a priority that you set. There are times in which instructors might want to keep an announcement up all semester, and others which they might only want to keep up for a day, or a week. The changes to the announcements area allow you to more quickly arrange, prioritize, and dismiss announcements for students.

Hood showed that significant changes were made to the content creation tools. The links in the content creation areas, in which instructors can create links, documents, and file downloads for students, now has three links for that purpose instead of the previous five. The most basic function in the content areas allows instructors to choose to create an item or create a file. Creating an Item works similarly to the way it worked in previous releases. Instructors can create a title, body and attachment in an item, and it is immediately available to their students, or delayed if they wish. Creating a File allows you to simply add a file without getting the textbox that creating an Item presents. Any file you upload to an Item or File page uploaded to a local file to Blackboard’s file storage system. When uploading content to courses, instructors can choose to browse your local desktop computer or from your course files that they have already uploaded.

Hood had a tip for Microsoft Office users. There is a particularly useful feature for people who use Microsoft Word to prepare their course content, such as their syllabus. In the past, copying and pasting content from a Word document often meant losing formatting, requiring a subsequent cleaning up of the document, and lost time and effort. There is now a Mashup button with a “Paste from Word” option in the toolbar that can help you to preserve line breaks and other formatting as you paste it in.

Hood told the audience to be aware of a misunderstanding in Blackboard that some people have reported to him. If an instructor wants to remove an item from a content area, it is important to click on the contextual menu next to the item itself. If you click on the remove command in the contextual menu for the content area at the top of a page, (e.g. Course Materials), you will remove the entire content area rather than simply an item within that area. Hood said that Blackboard has greatly improved its ability to deliver files directly to users, rather than as an attachment to an Item.

In the new version of Blackboard, you can add audio files and images as objects in content areas. Students can begin to use these files in one click, as opposed to having to click into a Blackboard item, then into the attachment. Blackboard’s mashups feature supports the use of various external media sites, such as Flickr and YouTube as a source for course content. The new Course Files, found in the Control Panel menu, can be populated with various files such as documents and spreadsheets, then browsed, linked to and shared according to access rules you set up. For instructors who wish to upload a lot of files at once, they need only drag and drop a folder or series of selected files into the course files area. Even if an instructor deletes a link to a file in course files, the file remains in storage until it is specifically deleted from course files. Also when you rename or move a file in course files, all links to it stay intact. For instructors who wish for students to have a place where they can simply drop files that will be shared with other students,, they can recreate the functionality of a WebSpace Dropbox using course files by setting sharing permissions on a course files folder. This eliminates sending students to a different application (WebSpace) for using the shared files folder.

Grade Center now has its very own top-level Control Panel item. Links to Grade Center smart views, where faculty can see, for instance, a subset of all students, can now be placed under the Grade Center link in the Control Panel. Instructors can quickly see items that require action, such as assignments that need grading, with the Needs Grading link. It’s easier to grade blogs, wikis, and journals in Blackboard now. Course Blogs allow items to be posted for student review and comment, and Course Journals & Wikis allow students to individually or collectively write about course content, all of which can be used for assessment. Instructors can now create rubrics to serve as guidelines for grading assignments and essay questions. These rubrics can be associated in the Grade center with the items to which they apply. The Grade Center now allows instructors to grade assignments without knowing who the student who completed the assignment is. This can help to prevent a positive or negative bias that the instructor may have acquired about a student. Another new and interesting feature is that an instructor can color code Grade Center entries in order to highlight certain students, grades or activity.

Finally, there is a new tab labeled Book Bag that shows students which books they selected from their course sites to order from Labyrinth. The Book Bag feature is an inter-application relationship with Labyrinth Books, and allows students to order and purchase books in Blackboard, then simply walk over to pick them up at Labyrinth.

Dennis Hood explained the ways in which Blackboard 2011 at Princeton will improve instructor and student productivity, file management, and media consumption. The interface is a bit cleaner and easier to navigate. The Course Files feature allows for more direct management and control of files in Blackboard. The Grade Center allows users to stay better informed of their recorded progress in courses. Even buying textbooks is easier. For more information, or if you have questions about Blackboard at Princeton, please contact Dennis Hood at hood@princeton.edu.

Blackboard 2011 Quick Start Guide

Audio Podcast of the talk

The New Blackboard 9: Finding Your Way

2010-05-07T18:26:27Z

Ten years ago, Princeton adopted Blackboard as its course management system. During the past decade, the system has moved from serving a handful of courses to every course. What was an occasional convenience has become an integral part of the educational process at Princeton.

In June, the University will be upgrading the system to Blackboard 9. New features promise to improve teaching, learning, and course management. The most striking change initially, though, for instructional staff and builders, will be the new interface for editing and managing the course sites.

]]> No longer is the control panel a single page you go to with links to everything you need to manage the site, such as content editing, the grade center, user management, email, and other tools. Now, site control elements are accessed “in-line,” from drop down lists attached to, or found below, the course menu. While this method of access is more logical, it will take some getting used to for those accustomed to the old single-page control panel.

At the May 5 Lunch ‘n Learn seminar, Dennis Hood, Princeton’s CMS Manager for ten years, demonstrated many of these and other improvements. “All the tools old tools are still there, plus new ones,” says Hood, “you just get to them through a different route.”

For assignments, instructors can now permit students multiple attempts to take quizzes and exams. Faculty will know when assignments and tests have been submitted. A todo list gives students a clear sense of what tasks are outstanding. It is now far easier to manage group assignments and tasks. And the new version offers a nice range of customizing features. For example, students will see only those tabs that contain information.

Faculty will appreciate that it is easier to upload syllabi and other course materials. And those who are giving classes that are similar to others they have taught will easily be able to copy older offerings into their new courses.

They will also appreciate the inline confirmations used throughout the system. The result is a more seamless workflow… fewer clicks to navigate the system and to complete tasks, and with embedded help throughout.

The new blackboard also offers a range of new tools, notably blogs and journals. With Blogs, students can openly share their thoughts. They can post text, images, links and attachments, and their posts are open for comments. Journals are self-reflective essays. Only students and faculty can comment upon these posts, though faculty have the option of sharing journal posts with the class. In version 10, which is expected in a year, faculty and their students will also be able to experiment with Wikis.

“The transition to the new version will be an easy one,” promises Hood. “But if you still have trouble, feel to call.” Assistance with Blackboard is available at 258-0737 or at blackboard.princeton.edu

The podcast and handout are available.

Blackboard at Princeton

2008-09-18T14:01:35Z

Ken King of CUNY was the first to joke that it took three decades for the overhead projector to find its way from the bowling alley to the classroom. His point, true until recently, was that classrooms have been technological backwaters, defined more by chalk and slate than by silicon.

In August 2000, the Provost decreed that every Princeton course should have it own web site. Until then, faculty habitually distributed their syllabi and course information on the first day of the class. Students had to travel to the reserve reading room to obtain most of their course readings.

Today, all courses at Princeton rely upon the BlackBoard CMS (Course Management system). For the students, the change is a welcome relief. Apart from the fact that they can’t now misplace their copy of the syllabus, Blackboard is a central repository for and integral component of every course. Students can read their course materials online, take part in online discussions, download a fresh syllabus, submit their work, and even take a quiz.

]]> A number of enhancements made during the summer of 2008 have improved Blackboard’s functionality:

The Grade Center

To assist faculty administration of grades, a redesigned Grade Center has new capabilities and vast improvements over the previous Gradebook. Some of the new features or improvements include:

• Smart Views - the ability to categorize Students into groupings based on selected criteria. AIs and section instructors are now able to see only their own students;

• Inline editing - faculty can enter grades simply on the Grade Center’s spreadsheet

• Display - faculty can customize the display of the Grade Center.

• Ease of Use - A redesigned tool bar, the Action Bar, provides easier access to multiple functions;

• Reports - Faculty can create and print Reports that they can hand out to students;

• New grade calculations - Faculty can now view average and Minimum/Maximum grades, and they can create weighted grades or a grading Schema.

You can obtain more information about the Grade Center or watch a video overview.

WebSpace

In past years, faculty could use the Blackboard Content Collection, a central repository to store the documents that they could then place on their Blackboard course web sites. By using this content system, faculty could easily link documents to more than one Blackboards course site and more easily carry materials forward from year to year.

This year, Princeton has licensed the full, up-to-date version of Xythos on which the Blackboard Content Collection is based. This document management and collaboration solution, known now as WebSpace, has many powerful features. For example, faculty will be able share files or all kinds easily with University colleagues and others outside the Princeton community. Unlike the former Content Collection, such sharing does not require any kind of special ID or Blackboard access for outside parties.

Faculty are welcome to use WebSpace independently of Blackboard in support of collaborative research or simply as a convenient place to store key files. And of course, they can also use WebSpace as a more comprehensive replacement for the Blackboard Content Collection.

You will fine more information about WebSpace features here.

Discussion Board

Blackboard’s Discussion Boards are an increasingly popular way to extend class discussion. Faculty can post relevant topics and permit students to enter their thoughts at any time. Students gain an opportunity to express their opinions and also to benefit from the thoughts of others.

New features in the discussion board include:

• Users can view course discussions in a Tree View that highlights titles in each discussion thread.

• Instructors can now mark discussion forums as “read” or “unread.”

• Users can now subscribe or unsubscribe to a forum. For a visual introduction to the Discussion Board changes, you can watch a tutorial.

Web Appointment Scheduling System (WASS)

The Web Appointment Scheduling System (WASS) permits members of the University community to schedule office hour and other appointments using the Web. Although developed by the University outside of Blackboard, it is now possible to use the tool from within each course’s table of contents. Faculty, deans, and others can use WASS to create a web-based calendar on which they indicate their availability for appointments. Students and others can locate these calendars on the Web, find an available appointment time, and schedule an appointment. You may learn more about WASS here.

Blackboard Sync

This new tool delivers course information and updates from Blackboard to users inside Facebook. Students who rely upon Facebook for other sources of information can now obtain new assignments, grades, and forum posts there. To add this new feature, log into Princeton’s Blackboard and select “Blackboard Sync” from the Tools module under the My Blackboard tab.

For security reasons, Princeton has opted not to display course rosters on Facebook. More information on this new application is available here.

Collaboration Tools at Princeton

2008-04-09T19:23:12Z

OIT’s recent Strategic Planning effort identified the need for a “data lifeline,” a comprehensive way to store digital information, ways to search and archive the data, and policies to control data retention and disposal. OIT has begun the construction of an “information infrastructure” that will include massive central data storage, comprehensive data repositories, and simple-to-use collaboration software.

To help oversee these efforts, OIT has hired Mark Ratliff, one of the original developers of JSTOR, a popular online scholarly journal archive, as our new “digital repository architect.” And OIT has acquired and installed several products that aim to simplify the management of digital content for all members of the University community.

]]> At the April 9 Lunch ‘n Learn seminar, Mark introduced three members of OIT who demonstrated new collaboration tools. Dennis Hood, Manager of Courseware within OIT’s Academic Services, introduced Princeton’s WebSpace file management system; Sal Rosario, Coordinator of Process Improvement within OIT’s Finance, Administration, and Planning presented the Miscrosoft SharePoint service; and Harris Otubu, Manager of the Help Desk Phone Center within OIT’s Support Services, gave an overview of WebEx.

Ratliff explained that, while WebSpace and Sharepoint appear to provide similar services, they may serve different constituencies. WebSpace is primarily for managing and collaborating with files and may therefore appeal to individual faculty and students who are involved in academic or administrative collaborative efforts. By contrast, SharePoint is a tool designed primarily for team communication within a web intranet. It contains useful widgets such as discussion boards, calendars, and document libraries.

Any member of the University community, explained Dennis Hood, can automatically establish an account by accessing WebSpace with any popular web browser. The system easily and intuitively permits users to create folders, store files, and share them with others here at Princeton or indeed with anyone throughout the world. You can use WebSpace to share your files with your colleagues. You can link WebSpace files to Blackboard for use with your teaching or simply to share files with your classes. You can also use WebSpace as a repository for your web pages. The system can store any file type and has a built-in Wiki that would permit a team, through a public or private web site, to add information incrementally to the group’s efforts.

SharePoint offers a full-fledged collaboration environment for website creation, document sharing, group discussions, blogging, calendaring, and Wikis. Sal Rosario emphasized that the Microsoft’s SharePoint collaboration tool is especially useful for managing projects. In addition to most of the features contained within WebSpace, Sharepoint offers discussion and announcement lists, task and contact lists, calendars, Blogs, and surveys. Contact lists , Events, and Tasks can be integrated into Microsoft Outlook. Survey results can be exported to Microsoft Excel. Sharepoint also permits you to create picture libraries with a slideshow viewer. Questions about the SharePoint implementation can be directed to Sal Rosario; Training classes will be scheduled starting in May.

The University also has a license with WebEx, in this case for hosting web-based desktop conferences and training. Simply put, you can use WebEx to share your desktop with a collaborative group, perhaps to deliver real-time presentations to remote PCs, described Harris Otubu. To set up a WebEx event, members of the University community go to OIT’s conferencing page. There, you will learn how to install the WebEx Meeting Maker client. Once you have an account and have installed the software, you may then schedule your event. You may also need to arrange for voice conferencing.

Mark Ratliff, Princeton’s new Digital Repository Architect, will work with members of the University community to understand their digital content management needs and to ensure that the University’s digital repository architecture is designed to meet those needs. He will help to develop overall strategies for the development and management of digital repositories and their content.

A podcast and the presentation are available.

******PLEASE NOTE*********** The WebSpace service had been called “WebShare” at the time of this presentation, thus the references to the old name in both the podcast and the presentation materials.

Video on Demand at Princeton

2007-04-25T21:45:04Z

For the past six years, OIT’s Language Resource Center has offered a Video on Demand service that permits faculty to integrate film into their teaching.

The service permits faculty to submit requests for full films or clips. Once the films are located or purchased, OIT digitizes them and stores the digitized video files on a streaming server. Students can gain access to the video material at any time from a number of select locations. Students can find the links to the films and clips within the University’s Blackboard Course Management System. Every course that uses the service will have the links within a Course Materials folder (the location that contains copyrighted materials). Students simply click on the link and the film will appear.

Use of the service has grown considerably, from just 27 courses and 137 titles in 2001 to more than 300 courses and nearly 1,800 titles in 2006. Faculty continue to request approximately 300 new titles each semester.

At the April 25 Lunch ‘n Learn seminar, Marianne Crusius, manager of the Language Resource Center, described the service. She explained how to request a film, how to link the digitized videos to Blackboard course page, and how to use virtual film clips within the classroom. Faculty can make all of the films available to students, or reserve some films or clips only for classroom use.

She noted that the Video on Demand service is popular throughout Humanities and language courses and in Politics, Psychology, and the Woodrow Wilson School. Some courses make just a single film available. At the other extreme, one film studies course offers 35 films.

]]> Crusius then introduced three faculty members who illustrated the range of use of the service within their teaching. Daniela Antonucci, a Lecturer in French and Italian, uses Video on Demand in Italian 319, the Literature of Gastronomy which she teaches with Prof. Pietro Frassica. In lecture, when they introduce topics, they often use films to introduce visual materials that reinforce the main themes of the course. The films are frequently inspired by the literature that they have assigned the students. They have found that use of the clips in teaching inspires discussion and enhances student understanding.

Antonucci showed one clip that stressed the importance of conversation at meal time in Italy. Another clip emphasized key aspects about the unification of Italy in the early 20th century. Students read assigned novels, and the clips are used to focus attention on key points. They showed, for example, how much Italians enjoy eating, and how everything happens at the table.

Larry Danson, Professor in English, has used Video on Demand technology from the beginning in his Shakespeare courses. Years ago, he faced challenges incorporating specific scenes into the classroom. It was difficult, for example, with VHS tapes to locate the starting spot of needed clips. With films on CDs, the problem was worse still, because you could only go to a chapter break rather than a specific scene. If you wanted to compare one version of a scene with another, he explained, that was especially awkward.

With Video on Demand, Danson can now proceed quickly from any segment or scene that he thinks is appropriate to another… or he can quickly play through a segment twice. He brought up three different versions of the same scene from Hamlet. He provided an analysis of all three, showing how the different films and directors had portrayed the character’s introduction.

Yukari Tokumasu, a Lecturer in East Asian Studies, uses the service to provide video materials for Japanese language instruction. She has found the video materials are a useful way to teach authentic Japanese language and culture, including both verbal and non-verbal communication and to show the use of intonation in colloquial Japanese.

She provides students with access to Japanese movies, soap operas and documentaries. Students have multiple opportunities to view the video tapes, to aid comprehension, and to reinforce the lessons. In a recent survey, students confirmed the usefulness of having access to the videos both in and out of class. They can review the material as needed and prepare adequately for each class.

Instructions for using the Video on Demand service are available on the Language Resource Center web page. To search for available video, search just as you would for books. Go to the University Library main catalog and set the limit to video. Searches will then be limited to video within the University’s collection.

To request a video, go to the library’s online reserve request service and fill out the form as you would for any book or reserve reading. Simply provide the title or the title call number for the film and check the Video on Demand box. You can also request films that are not in the University’s collection. The library will make every effort to acquire these new titles.

Requests for the service will be forwarded to the Language Resource Center.

Crusius invited faculty to send her e-mails directly if their requests involve specific film versions, clips, special dates on which the films are needed, or specific instructions on how the videos need to be digitized regarding the spoken language and subtitles.

Crusius concluded by noting that the service meets copyright restrictions under Fair Use by strictly controlling access to the service. Only students registered in the course can access the links in Blackboard and only from public clusters and lecture halls, not in dorm rooms. Access is further restricted to only assigned films and only during the semester or part of it.

Virtual Office Hours with Blackboard

2006-04-19T12:15:01Z

When approached by their teaching assistants with the dilemma of overly large precepts, two co-instructors decided to be creative with the technology tools available to them. Rather than scheduling office hours to advise students one-on-one, Drs. Karen Malatesta and Phil Felton of Molecular Biology have discovered the usefulness of Blackboard’s virtual classroom for conducting online meetings in their MOL214-EEB214: Introduction to Cellular and Molecular Biology.

Students log on at regularly scheduled Blackboard sessions to ask and answer questions and to share a white board space. Professors Malatesta and Fenton pre-prepare images to insert in the whiteboard. Students could be asked to comment upon or complete the images.

A camera icon permits the instructor to capture a snapshot of the whiteboard.

]]> All of the meeting conversations are archived, and many students use the discussions as an aid in preparing for their exams. Students can therefore benefit even if they cannot attend the online sessions. By downloading the archives, students can search through to find answers to most questions pertinent to the class. Although not all students are active online, all of them can benefit from the collective comments of the entire group. Of the more than 250 students in their class, as many as 30 have joined the online discussion at one time. Of those, they estimate that about a quarter are active, but all benefit by watching and considering the live dialogue.

Posing as a simulated student, Fenton typed in the Blackboard meeting window: “What’s the difference between transcription and translation?”

“Read the textbook” replied Malatesta.

Faculty Demonstrate Interesting Uses of Blackboard for Teaching and Learning

2006-02-14T21:24:24Z

Many of you are well aware that the Blackboard Course Management System provides easy access to a syllabus, a facebook, a gradebook, a sectioning tool, e-mail lists, links to reserve reading, and other course documents. At OIT’s February 8 Lunch ‘n Learn, faculty members Keiko Kuriyama, Antonio Calvo, Ana Figueroa, Rena Lederman, Lee Mitchell and Lee Silver and Technical Staff member Laurel Goodell proved you can also use Blackboard to enhance the learning experience for students.

For example, you can now create reusable, automatically graded exams. With self-correcting questions, you can make sure that students keep up with the reading and lectures. And by using Blackboard’s discussion boards, you can extend the classroom discussion and sustain interest in key topics throughout the semester.

]]> Lecturer in Japanese Keiko Kuriyama needed an online test to place undergraduates in appropriate language courses. The company that provides the University with the placement tests for French, German, Italian, and Spanish does not have such tests for Japanese, so Ms. Kuriyama designed her own within Blackboard. As you will see here, Blackboard also provides built in support for Japanese, among many foreign languages. Students can now take a timed test that evaluates their understanding of Japanese grammar and culture. Here are two of the sample questions designed within Blackboard. The Japanese reading test takes advantage of Blackboard’s built-in timer. Blackboard even provides a warning when there is one minute left.

Of special interest is the placement test module for listening. Students watch a short video within Blackboard and are then asked to respond to several questions that evaluate their comprehension. The test helps the faculty to assess students’ ability and to place students in higher level courses only when they meet specific requirements.

Imagine self-correcting quizzes and students able to review their vocabulary whenever they want. That’s what Antonio Calvo and Ana Figueroa, demonstrated using materials developed for Spanish 107 by Mr. SerafÃn Coronel-Molina (lecturer in the Spanish and Portuguese Department), Dr. Reem Iversen and Ms. Carmen Santa Cruz. Students can select the a vocabulary review from within the course’s Blackboard site. By selecting a word, students can review its part of speech, its English definition, and even listen to its pronunciation within a sentence.

This group also developed a Jeopardy-like vocabulary game with self-correcting exercises. Students get immediate feedback without taking up in-class time and can monitor their progress directly on the Blackboard site.

To help students keep up with lecture material and to test their understanding in a low-stakes environment, Technical Staff member and Geosciences Instructional Lab Manager Laurel Goodell demonstrated quizzes in Geo206, History of the Earth, and GEO210, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and other Hazards. These were developed by Professors Guust Nolet and Allan Rubin.

She found that, once set up, the quizzes were easy to grade, easy to re-use and modify, and secure. The quizzes were counted as only a small part of the grade. To encourage learning, Goodell permitted students to print out the quizzes, correct them, and then resubmit them for a small adjustment of the grade.

The GEO206 quizzes employ many different question types, including multiple choice, true-false, fill-in-the-blank, and placing items in hierarchical order. Students are encouraged to have their pens and calculators at the ready. At the conclusion of the quiz, they receive immediate results and feedback.

Goodell remarks that, as a result of the ongoing incentive to learn and stay current with the material, students are performing better on exams.

Professor Rena Lederman’s ANT301 provides an introduction to “doing” anthropology through the study and practice of ethnographic field methods and research techniques.

This past year, with a record enrollment of 38 students, Prof. Lederman required use of Blackboard’s discussion board feature an effort to insure that course retained its seminar-style discussions. Some of the students were constantly on the board, and all were involved. She discovered that students became more involved in their face-to-face discussions and that the discussion board became the kind of collaborative environment that colleagues tend to create. A 12 minute long interview (Real format) with Dr. Lederman may be viewed here.

In response to his provocative questions, English Professor Lee Mitchell’s ENG363 (American Literature: 1930-Present) students used to submit comments on 3x5 cards that he would then read in class. He finds that use of the discussion board permits all of the students to see and benefit from each other’s comments. He reports that it also helps to keep the discussion going outside class hours. He observes that students tend to live in a diurnal pattern opposite to most faculty, but the entire group can benefit regardless of when thoughts are posted.

Dr. Lee Silver showed off his web site for WWS320-MOL320 (Spring, 2006). He changed the names in the organizational tabs and he used simple HTML [Hypertext Markup Language] to place all of his course materials on the site. The interactive syllubus contains links to all of the papers that the students will read and in the order that Dr. Silver wants them to read them. He has also included access to all of his Powerpoint presentations and a few films. He developed a script that permits him to share the slides as a single scrolling image (and that he’s happy to share it with anyone who asks!). He noted that the course is secure; only the students have access. Students report that they are excited about going to a web site that contains everything they need for the course.

Simple Precept Assignment

2004-10-16T01:53:06Z

Newly developed tool promises to ease the
assignment of students to precepts and drills.

Faculty and staff will find the tedious job of sorting students into sections for each course has gotten a whole lot easier this semester. A new Sectioning Tool available through Blackboard will now automatically create Blackboard groups based on precepts, drills or ear training sections.

]]> Rather than sorting the clutter of papers that students previously submitted to pick their preferred sections, faculty and staff can easily assign sections with this new “point and click” interface. The feature is available to users with access to the Blackboard Control Panel.

Administrators will also welcome the automated notification they and the students receive when the system detects any schedule conflicts. Conflicts can be overridden manually to accommodate a dropped course that may not register immediately in Blackboard.

Once the sections have been saved, Blackboard groups are automatically created and populated with the student members of that section. Students can also be automatically notified via e-mail as to which section they’ve been placed in. Online help is available in the Blackboard site. (You must log in.) Training is available by contacting 258-7331 or by sending e-mail to blackboard@princeton.edu.