This is a presentation noting new tools and options that instructors will have access to in Blackboard 9.1

1. The VCCS is moving up in the Blackboard world! We will soon have some
new enhanced features and tools available to us through the Blackboard
Environment.
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2.  The upgrade will take place on May 12, 2012
 A Blackboard 9.1 overview session will be offered on each campus
for instructors who wish to attend. (February 23rd: Alberta Room
B45 from 11:30 -12:00; February 28th: Keysville Room 22 from 11:30 –
12:00 )
 Upon request, instructors will be set-up with a practice course area
on our “Explore” site to practice using Blackboard 9.1.
 Blackboard 9.1 sessions will be offered during the New Horizons
conference.
 Several training sessions will be offered on the Christanna Campus
and the John H. Daniel Campus throughout the month of April and
the beginning of May. An email will be sent in March with specific
dates, times, and locations.
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3. The following slides walk you through some of the new additions coming with Blackboard
9.1, and give you an opportunity to take a look at some of the new options that will be
available to you soon. This certainly does not replace training or actual practice with 9.1.
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4. In the control panel, you will have a My Files
drop-down menu.
These areas allow you to locate, upload, and
manage any files, such as documents and
images, that you utilize in your course.
Files can be uploaded here directly. You can
also access any files here that you attach in any
content area in your course. Consider this a
Course My Files storage area that gives you one spot where you
area. can manage files that you either have linked in
your course, or you plan to link in your course.
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5. Through your My Files area, you can upload entire
folders all at once into your course. You can simply
drag and drop multiple files and folders to upload,
and then create links to these files throughout your
courses. Upload once and share throughout your
course or in multiple courses. Then if you need to
make a change to that document, you can overwrite
the original file and replace with a new one in your
My Files area. This then updates the document
everywhere you have it linked.
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6. Wiki: A website that
users can modify, add
to, and delete content.
These are often
collaborative projects.
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7. 1) Audio, Image, Video, URL – You can now add these without creating an item. URL’s were also referred
to as external links in Blackboard 9.
2) Learning Module—This has been enhanced in 9.1 to now include a table of contents.
3) Lesson Plan--Containers for content that present objectives and other details directly above its list of
content items.
4) Blank Page —New option in 9.1 that allows you to add a blank page to content areas.
5) Module Page--This new content presentation mode can be added to a content area to display specialized
content from a variety of prefabricated modules such as Content Collection, Dictionary, and Thesaurus, to
name a few.
6) Mashups – Blackboard 9.1 now offers a quick way to embed content from these three outside sources.
(Flickr, SlideShare, and YouTube)
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8. • Flicker Photo
• SlideShare Presentation
• YouTube Video
These are searchable now through Blackboard and can be embedded in the following
three ways.
Thumbnail: displays a small size of the item on the course page with controls to launch it.
Text Link with Player: displays a link to launch the item on the course page.
Embed: displays the item directly on the course page.
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9. Flickr: Online photo sharing website
Search Flicker for images to insert into Blackboard, without leaving the Blackboard area.
Citations can automatically be added with your images to address copyright.
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10. SlideShare: Website for sharing presentations, documents, and videos online
You can now access SlideShare through Blackboard, search for presentations, and
add those to your course area without ever leaving Blackboard.
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11. YouTube: Video sharing website
Access YouTube through Blackboard, search for videos, and add those to
your course area.
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12. • Interactive Rubrics
• Timed Assessment Options
• Question Numbering within Editor
• Copy Function for Tests, Surveys, and Pools
• Question Finder
• Link to Questions
• Question Sets
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13. Create a rubric to provide guidelines on how
tasks will be graded.
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14. Rubrics can be associated with gradable items
such as assignments, specific discussion
boards, journals, blogs, wikis, essay tests,
short answer tests, or even through the grade
center column. More than one rubric can be
associated with an item, and you can create
one rubric and use it multiple times within one
course.
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16. Yes!!! Test question numbering is back within the test canvas.
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17. You can now create a copy of a test, survey, or pool.
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18. When creating a test you
can browse your pools
and/or tests based on
various criteria such as
keyword or question type,
and then add those specific
questions to the new test
you are developing.
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19. When using “find questions”, you can either copy questions into a new test, or you can link
to questions within a course. (Linking does not work if the existing test or pool is not in the
same course as the new test.) When linking, any changes you make to the original question
will automatically be updated in all linked questions. If you copy a question, you create a
completely separate question that will be unaffected by any changes made to the original.
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20. Utilizing question sets, gives instructors a little more control over which questions pop-up when
using a random block. Create a set of a few questions by selecting from existing tests and/or pools.
Add the set to your test and decide how many of those questions will display on your test and how
many points they are worth. (Example: Create a question set with 10 questions, but set it so that
only 5 of those 10 will display on the test.) Blackboard will randomly select which questions display
for each student from that set, therefore each student has a different test.
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21. • Grade Center Location
• Needs Grading Page
• Anonymous Grading
• Grade By Question Attempt
• Grading Color Codes
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22. The Grade Center has its own menu now located on
the Control Panel, instead of being part of the
evaluation menu.
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23. You also have a Needs Grading page now as an option. This will show any
assignments or tests with student submissions that need to be scored. You
can then select to Grade All Users or Grade Anonymously.
You can also sort and filter the results to help you decide what to grade first.
For example you could filter by due date, to make sure you are grading
assignments that are the highest priority.
Once all student submissions have been scored for a particular assignment, it
is then removed from this list.
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24. You can choose to grade an assignment or test
while keeping identifying information about
the student hidden. After an attempt is
graded, the student’s name is then revealed.
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25. Question-By-Question Grading
Through the Grade Questions option, you can view all questions for a test, question type, default points, and
number of responses for each question. You can then click on the response number for a particular question,
grade/review all of the responses for that particular question for each student, and edit each students’ score for
that question on that screen. This works well if you need to grade essay or short answer questions and would like
to view all student responses for a particular question before entering grades.
You can access this through the column drop-down menu for a particular
assessment. (Click the double down arrows at the top of the column to
display the menu.)
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26. You can color code to identify in progress, needs grading,
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27. When creating a blog or journal area, you can
set up grading. This automatically creates a
column in the grade center for that particular
blog or journal. You can then enter grades,
feedback, and grading notes within the blogs
and journal area and those scores will then
display in the associated column in the grade
center.
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28. You had the capability to enable
grading on discussion board forums
in both Blackboard 9, but this has
been enhanced in 9.1. Now
instructors have the capability to
post feedback and grading notes
from within this area as opposed to
going through the grade center.
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29. • Bulk Delete
• Messages
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30. Through Bulk Delete, you can
remove multiple areas within
your course in one step.
Although this could be a
useful feature, this could also
be very dangerous. This
action can not be undone, so
use this with caution.
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31. To utilize this new tool, you would need to add a link to this tool on your course menu.
This is very similar to email, but these private message can only be sent and accessed
through Blackboard. In comparison to the email tool within Blackboard, messages does
give you text formatting options.
In messages you have
the option to carbon
copy and blind carbon
copy others in on the
message as well, but
only those enrolled in
your course.
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32. Along with the usual formatting options, when creating these messages, you also
have the capability to add Flickr Photos, YouTube Videos, and SlideShare
Presentations. (We currently do not have a subscription to add NBC content.)
Remember: If you decide to utilize this tool, you would need to remember to check
this area yourself for messages.
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33. I encourage you to utilize the Explore site and attend upcoming training sessions to help you
prepare for this upgrade. (See slide 2 concerning training.)
To utilize the Explore site, please submit your name and MySVCC/Blackboard user name. You
will be enrolled in a practice area, but be aware that you may be sharing a practice area with
other Southside instructors.
http://tiny.cc/bb-explore
The explore site is accessible through the following web address.
http://explore.vccs.edu/
To log-in, you will utilize your normal MySVCC user name and password. You may find that
you need to clear out your browser cache and cookies for the site to accept your log-in. The
following web address has instructions on how to do this through various browsers.
http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-Your-Browser%27s-Cache
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