Forum and Thread Grading
Grading settings are now available when creating or modifying a forum in a Course or Organization. When grading is enabled for a forum, Instructors, Teaching Assistants, and users with the Grader or Manager forum roles will be able to access the Grade Forum Users page. Instructors may choose to grade the forum or to enable thread grading within the forum. If thread grading is enabled for the forum, Instructors have the option to turn grading on or off for each new thread.
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.
Forum Moderation and User Management
By default, Discussion Board users are given forum roles based on their course, organization, or system role. Instructors and Leaders are given the Manager role by default. Managers control user privileges within the Discussion Board through the use of roles. For example, the Manager may delegate responsibility for reviewing posts to a Moderator.
When creating a forum or modifying a forum’s settings, instructors have the option of forcing moderation. If moderation is enabled, when a user other than a Moderator or Manager submits a post, the post is saved to the Moderation Queue. New posts are displayed in the queue for review and publication. If a post is returned, a return message can be attached to the post allowing the Moderator to inform the user why the post was not accepted for publication.
By default, Discussion Board users that are assigned to a group are allowed to create threads in the Group Discussion Board forum. This means that group users can now begin using the Discussion Board immediately and do not have to wait for the instructor to create a forum and begin a thread.
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.
Thread Subscriptions
The Subscribe to Thread notifies users each time a new post is added to the thread. The notification is enabled by the user and sent to the email address stored in the user’s Personal Information. Users will not be able to enter a different email address to which notifications will be sent to prevent spam from being generated from the Discussion Board. This feature is available to all users with a forum role other than “blocked” if the feature is enabled for the forum.
Enhancements of Existing Features
The following enhancements improve the user experience in the Discussion Board:
- 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. Forums that were archived before an update to 7.0 Application pack 1 will become Unavailable after the update process.
- The Discussion Board uses Adaptive Release rules and other availability rules such as Date set on any tool links to the Discussion Board.
- Searches can be limited or expanded to include current forum, current thread, or all forums in the course.
- Users can group posts into Collections. Collections can be sorted and filtered to customize the Collection for easy viewing and printing.
- Instructors can now “lock” a forum to prevent additional posts, but allow users to read existing threads. This feature replaces “archive” forum.
Cross-Browser, Cross Platform Support
The Visual Text Box Editor is now available to users running any supported browser.
The Visual Text Box Editor is compatible with the following browsers on Windows Operating Systems:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0
- Mozilla Firefox 1.0
- Netscape 8.0
The Visual Text Box Editor will not work with older versions of these browsers. Instead, the standard options for entering text will appear.
The Visual Text Box Editor is compatible with the following browsers on Macintosh Operating Systems:
- Safari 2.0
- Mozilla Firefox 1.0
When run on Safari, the Visual Text Box Editor Lite Version appears. The Lite Version does not include the button controls for several features because Safari does not yet support those rich-text editing features. Some features that are not accessible from a button in the Lite Version may still be activated using keyboard shortcuts. For example, the cut, copy, and paste functions may still be used through the keyboard shortcuts. Macintosh users may also download and use the free Mozilla Firefox 1.0 (or higher) Web Browser to use all the features of the Text Box Editor.
Firefox users, on all operating systems, must perform an extra step to enable the cut, copy, and paste functions. This is a function of the Firefox browser, and not Blackboard applications. The first time an attempt is made to cut, copy, or paste text in the Visual Text Box Editor, a message from Firefox will appear explaining that the action is not allowed. A link is provided for information on how to enable the cut, copy, and paste functions by editing a Firefox configuration file. The link currently points to http://www.mozilla.org/editor/midasdemo/securityprefs.html. Please check with Firefox for the most up-to-date information on using rich-text tools for cut, copy, and paste. Macintosh users may find that this does not fully resolve the problem, particularly because Firefox does not permit pasting text from Microsoft Office files on Mac. To accomplish this task, paste the text into a basic text editor, such as TextEdit or Notepad and then paste the text into the Visual Text Box Editor.
WebEQ and MathML
The WebEQ and MathML tools on the Visual Text Box Editor have been enhanced. When a WebEQ equation is inserted using the new Visual Text Box Editor, a place holder will appear in the body of the editor. Clicking Preview will display the equation, and the equation will render in Display View, including equations that contain left angle brackets (<). The spacing around the equation has been enlarged and the text size has been decreased so that the entire equation is clearly visible by default. The equation may be modified by selecting the place holder and clicking the WebEQ icon on the Visual Text Box Editor.
Users may receive a pop-up box when launching WebEQ that asks the user to trust an applet provided by Design Science, the maker of WebEQ. If users click Always, the pop-up will no longer appear on that computer when launching WebEQ.
MathML may now include whitespace in the editor without affecting the equation.
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 Gradebook item is scored based on grading option: last attempt, first attempt, highest score, lowest score, or average of scores. Additionally, an Override field has been included so that the instructor can override the score independent of any attempts.
Now that all attempts are visible in the Gradebook, the clearing options have been enhanced as well. 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).
Self-Assessment Options
The deployment of tests has been enhanced to permit Self-Assessment in two forms: allow the instructor and student to view the grade, or only allow the student to view the grade. In each case, the grade is not included in the final score for the student.
When deploying a test in a course, the instructor should uncheck the option called "Include this test in Gradebook score calculations" to allow students to take the test without affecting their overall score. Both the instructor and the student will still be able to review the results of the test. This option was previously only available through the Gradebook but is now also available in the course content area when deploying a test.
The second self-assessment option, called "Hide the score of this test from the Gradebook" will allow the student to take the test without displaying the results to the instructor.Test and Survey Import/Export
The ability to export and import tests and surveys assists with content reuse and collaboration. When a test (or survey) is created, creation settings are determined, questions and answers are developed, and metadata is associated. Now, all of that information can be reused simply by exporting the entire test to the local computer or to the Content Collection, and then importing it into another course’s Test or Survey Manager. Once the test or survey has been imported, any modifications may be made to customize it for the other 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.
Enhanced Submission Reports
The submission report for assessments now includes the following user information: First Name, Last Name, Course Name, Username, Course ID, name of the Assessment, and date/time of submission. This may be used as verification by the student that they have indeed submitted the assessment. Some instructors may require students to print this as a permanent record of the activity.
Changes to the Blackboard Learning System
New Language Packs
Two new Language Packs are included in this release: Traditional Chinese and Arabic. The Arabic Language Pack does not include right to left display.
Enhanced Administrator Pages for Course, Organization and User Management
The Courses, Organizations, and Users pages have enhanced sorting and paging as well as powerful searching capabilities. Many functions have been streamlined and unnecessary receipt pages eliminated.
Spell Check
Spell Check is now present in all places where email is used in the application, plus other key areas where proper spelling is essential, such as the Glossary tool and Assignment comments to/from instructors.
Changes to the Blackboard Community System
System Discussion Boards
Forum moderation, post rating, thread subscriptions, ability to save posts as drafts, general user interface and usability improvements, greater control over forum availability, improved search functionality, and improved collection of posts and threads.
Excerpts from Blackboard Academic Suite v. 7.1 Release Notes
