UMBC Blackboard Update
Spring 2002

This update is provided by the Office of Information Technology for students, faculty and staff using Blackboard at UMBC. If you have questions or suggestions, contact John Fritz at fritz@umbc.edu or 410.455.6596. For more information about using Blackboard, visit http://blackboard.umbc.edu.

SUMMARY

1. Drop-In Blackboard Demos
2. Tech Tips: Using Blackboard Effectively
3. Spotlight: Blackboard "Community" Sites Changing How UMBC Communicates
4. FYI: 2002-2003 TLT Faculty Development Grants
5. FYI: Install or Upgrade Microsoft Software for Free (Well Almost)
6. FYI: Spring 2002 OIT Newsletter is Now Available

DETAILS

1. Blackboard Drop-In Demos & Summer Workshops (6/5, 7/16 & 8/15)

The Office of Information Technology is offering a variety of Blackboard training opportunities this semester and this summer. Blackboard Drop-In Demos are informal, Q & A sessions open to UMBC students, faculty and staff every Thursday at 2 p.m. in the New Media conference room (ACIV 220). At the beginning of the demo, a Blackboard support specialist will list all problems people would like to address, and then spend the rest of the time showing how to solve them in Blackboard. If you're not interested in what's being covered, come to the next session or make an appointment for individual help. OIT will run the Drop-In Demos for the rest of the semester as an experiment in user support. Depending on demand and feedback, we'll add new sessions, change to another date/time, or drop them altogether.

If you are a faculty or staff member (or student assistant) and would like a more structured Blackboard training workshop, 90-minute beginning and advanced sessions will be offered June 5, July 16 and August 15. For more information and to register online, visit http://blackboard.umbc.edu. Note: OIT will also provide custom Blackboard training sessions for five or more people in a department. To request departmental training, send email to blackboard@umbc.edu.

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2. Tech Tips: Using Blackboard Effectively
By John Fritz

The following is excerpted from the April 2002 issue of Insights Online, UMBC's online community newspaper:

With more than 10,000 distinct campus users, Blackboard (http://blackboard.umbc.edu) has become a popular tool for academic AND general campus web needs. If you’re teaching a class or managing an organization with Blackboard, here are a few tips that will make life easier for your users.

Save & Upload Documents in both Word and HTML

One of Blackboard’s early selling points was that it allowed faculty to just upload their Microsoft Word documents such as syallabi, handouts and assignments. But this only works if your end users have Word AND their browser is configured to launch the application when it links to a file with the .doc extension. This is almost a default action in Internet Explorer, which is used by more than 70 percent of users accessing UMBC’s web site (see http://www.umbc.edu/stats).

But if your users don’t have Word or they’re using Netscape, they’ll likely have to 1) download your document or 2) open up another application to convert/view your Word document. Not exactly a “seamless” browsing experience, is it? Instead, save your Word (or WordPerfect) document as an HTML file:

Almost all word processors have a “Save As Web Page” or “Save As HTML” option and they require no knowledge of HTML—they simply create the same document with a *.htm or *.html file extension. Just upload this file with your word-processed *.doc file, and then anyone with any kind of web browser can see your content immediately. Here’s an HTML version of this article using this method.

Note: If you don’t want to cater to users’ needs, encourage them to comply with yours. You might tell students all documents will be posted in Word (or PowerPoint or Excel) and that you expect them to use Internet Explorer. If so, then refer them to the USM Microsoft Agreement so they can install Microsoft software for free. The same holds true for other preferred formats or applications, like *.rtf (rich text file) or *.pdf (portable document file) or Adobe Acrobat Reader. Obviously, this works better for a class because you have a little more control over your learning environment.

Send email (push) and post announcements (pull) about any new Bb content

When you’re just getting started with Blackboard—or your users are new to it—you can help reinforce the habit of checking the site by giving them a reason to do so. If you add a new document or start a new discussion, send them email announcing the content is available. You can reinforce this by posting a Blackboard announcement, which is the default entry point for most course and organization sites. It may seem tedious, but when you’re getting started, it’s an easy way to help make the website a regular part of your users’ experience. Once it is, you can back off.

Delete Blackboard navigation buttons you’re not using

By default, any new Blackboard course or organization site lists all of the navigation buttons. If you don’t want to use a discussion board, or there’s no real difference between “Course Information” and “Course Documents,” then enable or disable these buttons as you see fit. You can do this in "Control Panel" --> "Course/Organization Settings" -->"Area Availability."

Archive older threads in a very active discussion forum

If you’ve got an active discussion board AND you allow users to create their own threads, sometimes there can be a lot of postings to wade through. Users can of course sort these messages by date, author or topic in the forum, but as the course instructor or site manager, you can append older or irrelevant postings to an archive. Select the “Archives” link at the bottom of the forum, create a new archive, and then select the threads you want to archive. You might want to do this monthly, weekly or daily depending on the number of messages. This way, users always see the most current (or relevant) topics, but you haven’t lost threads others might be interested in keeping.

Customize (or Bypass) Blackboard’s navigation with a “Little Bit of Code”

If you’re in an assignment or discussion board and want to reference another document in your Blackboard site, use HTML to link to it directly—rather than explaining to the user where it is. Just go to the source document you want to link to, click the right mouse button to “copy link location,” then go to the document you want to link from, and paste the code. The HTML code for the source document in Blackboard will look very complex, but you don’t have to understand it. Just wrap it in “quotation marks” like you would in making any web link, and then use a simple “HREF” command to link to it. For example:

Use everything between the < and > characters above, but replace the “http://www.umbc.edu” code above with the source code of the document you want to link to inside Blackboard.

Note: If you’re linking to anything OUTSIDE of Blackboard, your HREF link code will need to look like this:

If you don’t use TARGET=_top, your web link will display inside the main window of your Blackboard site which can be disorienting to users as they browse that new site (see below):

Basically, every web site manager has to balance ease of use for users vs. ease of site production and maintenance. The key is communicating this in advance to manage everyone’s expectations.

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3. Blackboard "Community" Sites Changing How UMBC Communicates
By Marie Toomes, OIT Blackboard Community Support Specialist

The following is excerpted from the Spring 2002 issue of the OIT Newsletter.

When you hear the word Blackboard you probably think of online courses. In one way or another OIT supports over 200 Blackboard courses and 10,000 distinct student users each semester.

However, Blackboard's "Community" sites are also becoming a very effective method of campus communication. Take for example, the Delta Initiative's use of a Blackboard. At its inception, the purpose of Delta's Blackboard Community was to focus solely on supporting Delta's internal teams while they worked on the beginning phases of the project. During the design and prototype phase, UMBC subject matter experts were enrolled, expanding the Delta Community to include administrative areas such as Financial Services, Human Resources, and other departments. As the Delta program moves forward and the rollout sessions (demonstrations) approach, every UMBC staff and faculty member will be enrolled.

"I first became interested in using Blackboard because of the flexibility the community offered in distributing information within and between the four Delta task teams," says Debra Arnold, administrator for the Delta Initiative's Blackboard Community site. "It is the Community's built-in tools that simplified the task of getting meeting schedules, timelines, project outlines and draft documents to those groups that needed them. Whether the Delta team members were working alone or in different groups, on campus or off, in a meeting or at a conference, communication flowed as Delta's internal task force made use of Blackboard's email, file exchange, digital drop box, and virtual discussion tools".

Arnold says the Delta task force and the UMBC subject matter experts will use these same communication tools during the design and implementation stage to share information and build consensus on campus. For example, the dates, times and locations for the sessions demonstrating Delta's new automated payroll system will be listed in the Community's Calendar. These sessions will include demonstrations on integration between payroll and timekeeping activities, automated update and submission of hours worked, time records generated for all UMBC faculty and staff, and links to the payroll module to update pay status. Documents describing the new H.R. automated payroll process will be available in the Document area. The Discussion Board will provide discussion forums or threads relating to those H.R. modules being demonstrated. UMBC faculty and staff will be able to check the calendar for specific sessions, browse H.R. session documents in the document area, and/or use the discussion forums or threads to chat about topics, ask questions, and/or share their ideas, comments, and suggestions.

Other "communities" using Blackboard include the UMBC Faculty Senate, the English Department, the Academic Integrity Task Force and the Student Government Associaton.

"Blackboard provides the functionality of listproc [an email listserve] and more," says Joshua Overmiller, a member of the SGA, which uses Blackboard to discuss agenda items, share documents and post announcements. "It also provides portability for discussing SGA matters since all past postings are available." Overmiller is also considering using Blackboard for the UMBC Crew Club, for which he serves as president.

While no one intends Blackboard to replace face-to-face communication, Blackboard's "Community" sites have helped create a new environment where students, faculty and staff can engage in conversations and communicate their perspectives. To learn more about Blackboard, visit the login page at http://www.umbc.edu/blackboard.

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4. FYI: 2002-2003 TLT Faculty Development Grants (Proposal Deadline: May 31, 2002)

OIT and the the Faculty Development Center are jointly seeking proposals from UMBC department chairs and graduate program directors for faculty development in Teaching, Learning & Technology (TLT). Funding is available to departments (up to $5,000) for proposals that support UMBC priorities of improving technological literacy and student engagement. The faculty development proposals may consist of individual or group initiatives and should be applied to classes offered in the 2002-2003 academic year. Recipients will be expected to give a presentation about their projects at an upcocming TLT Brown Bag Workshop or TLT Fair. Deadline is May 31, 2002. For more information, including proposal guidelines and a description of past funded projects, visit www.umbc.edu/oit/tltgrants.html.

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5. FYI: Install or Upgrade Microsoft Software for Free (Well Almost)

If you're using Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel or PowerPoint, or you want to upgrade your Windows operating system, you can get your own copies of Microsoft software ($20 per CD) or borrow them (free). This offer is made possible through the USM Microsoft Agreement and covers all UMBC students, faculty and staff. For more information about eligibility and distribution, visit http://www.umbc.edu/oit/helpdesk/microsoft_license_agreement.htm.

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6. FYI: Spring 2002 OIT Newsletter is Now Available

The Office of Information Technology's Spring 2002 Newsletter is now availble online at the OIT homepage. Contents include the following:

• OIT Publishes Customer Service Stats, Awards First Palm PDA to Survey Respondent
• Campus Wireless Access (and Use) is Increasing
• What is Internet2?
• New IT Building to Feature Latest in Instructional Technology
• What's On TV? Tune into UMBC's Campus Cable Channels
  

In addition, campus users can now subscribe to an OIT-News listserve that will announce future newsletters and updates. For more intformation, visit http://www.umbc.edu/newsletter.

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