Blackboard FAQ

Click the questions above to view the answers.

Q. How does a student change their Email address?

A. Ask all your students to do the following:

1. Log on to your course in Blackboard
2. Go to the "TOOLS" area
3. Tell them go to "PERSONAL INFORMATION"
4. Tell them to click "EDIT PERSONAL INFORMATION"
5. Put in their Email address (they all will have their UCHC address there already - tell them to replace it with the one they use regularly).

Q. Why can't my students (or anyone else) find my course? Why is my course not AVAILABLE?

A. All courses when created are unavailable to students until the faculty member (instructor, i.e., you) makes them available. The idea is that they aren't visible to anyone but you until you're ready to allow people to see the course. Therefore, before anyone can see or get to your courses, you must make each available. To do this:

1. Go to the control panel for each course
2. Go to the COURSE OPTIONS area
3. Click on SETTINGS
4. Click COURSE AVAILABILITY
5. Click the YES radio button to make the course available
6. Click the SUBMIT button at the bottom to confirm your choice.

Q. How do I get a course on blackboard (my course was not automatically posted)?

A. All official UCHC courses should automatically appear under "My Courses" and all registered students should be enrolled by the week before classes start. If not, send the following in EMAIL to nicosia@uchc.edu

1. Full course title
2. Full course ID #
3. section # (e.g. 003, 01A, etc.)
4. School or department for each
5. Semester the course will be taught (Fall, Spring, Summer).

Q. How do I enroll a new student who wasn't initially registered (ADD)?

A. You can enroll new students (i.e. those who did not originally appear in your roster on Blackboard) by:

1. going to your control panel for the course
2. then to the USER MANAGEMENT area (upper right)
3. clicking "enroll user"
4. searching by last name (be sure "LAST NAME" is clicked NOT username)
5. then checking the box corresponding to correct student
;
6. finally click submit (at the bottom right).

OPTIONALLY you may allow students to enroll in your course between specific dates/times or send you Email requesting you to ADD them as above:
1. go to the control panel
2. go to the COURSE OPTIONS area at the lower left
3. click SETTINGS
4. click ENROLLMENT OPTIONS
5. click either the options to allow students to Email the instructor OR
6. click "SELF ENROLLMENT"
7. set the START and END dates you allow for either of these options
8. click SUBMIT at the lower right.

Q. How do I remove a student who has dropped the course (DROP)?

A. You may drop a student from your course in Blackboard manually in the following way:

1. go to your control panel for the course and to USER MANAGEMENT (upper right)
2. click "REMOVE USERS FROM COURSE"
3. search by last name (be sure "LAST NAME" is clicked NOT username)
4. then check the box at the left corresponding to correct student
5. type A "Yes" (note capital "Y", lower case "es") at the bottom right of the page, above "submit"
6. click submit
7. confirm the removal (you will be warned twice that this is final) when asked

Q. What information must I give my students to log onto my course after they have been enrolled?

A. Information you should give your students:

1. the username matches his/her UCHC domain account
2. the password is as set by school Dental: (dentXXXX) Medical: (medXXXX) MPH: (mphXXXX) Graduate: (gradXXXX) for new students ; otherwise, they should use their current password or contact the CEC at X8872 to reset it
3. they log onto the same site as the faculty: http://blackboard.uchc.edu
4. once they have logged onto Blackboard, they should see your course listed at the right under "my courses"
5. they should then click your course title which will bring them right into your course.

Q. How do I find my students' usernames and how do I print out my class list?

A. The student's username is USUALLY their last name, or if there are more than one by that name, their first initial + username. You can go to your control panel and find their usernames simply and print out your class list with their full names + usernames:

1. go to the control panel for each course
2. go to user management (upper right hand corner of control panel)
3. click LIST/MODIFY users
4. click SEARCH just under the "LIST ALL" tab
5. if you want to print this list, go to FILE then PRINT on your browser's tool bar.

You may have to go to a second screen to see the whole class if it's a large class --- you can do this by clicking the little numbers on the lower left on the bottom of the page where it says: RESULTS: 1 2 (The numbers indicate how many pages the class list takes up, underlined numbers are the page(s) you are NOT viewing at the moment).

Q. I can't get onto the UCHC Blackboard site. Why might this be?

A. Note the URL has NO "www" in it: http://blackboard.uchc.edu

Q. What happens to my course after the semester is over? Will it be erased?

A. We archive all courses at the end of each academic year. These courses may be retrieved and loaded on Blackboard within 24 hours from your request. We will need the course ID, section #, and Semester/Year, as well as the instructor's last name. The only exception to this are: MPH and PhD in Biomedical Science courses, those courses are archived at the end of each semester.

To retrieve an archived course, please contact Jason Nicosia at X8872 or nicosia@uchc.edu for assistance.

Q. How do I get my course listed in my school or department within Blackboard's course catalog?

A. Courses that were automatically created via the University's databases may not be "categorized" by school. To do so, simply go to the control panel of the course, click "settings" in the Course Options area at the lower left, and then click categorize course and fill in the proper information.

Q. Why do students not see my powerpoint slides?

A. If you upload a powerpoint presentation to Blackboard, your students must have the full powerpoint program in the machine on which they wish to view it. If they do not own powerpoint the easiest and best solution is to have them download the free powerpoint viewer from microsoft at viewer. Another less satisfactory solution is to save your powerpoint presentation as a "web archive" (an .mht or .mhtml file) - use the "save as" feature in powerpoint and then post it to blackboard. This feature may create a much larger file which may take a longer time to download, causing the user to think the machine is frozen so be sure to warn them if it is a large file. Finally be sure to encourage all to use the very latest (and free) version of IE Explorer or Netscape to avoid compatibility problems.

Q. How do I request a Blackboard account?

A. You may request a Blackboard account by completing the appropriate form and submitting it through the FITS office.

Q. Whom do I contact for help with Blackboard issues?

A. Please contact an FITS staff member by calling 860-679-4253, emailing fits@uchc.edu, or stopping by the FITS office in AM-015. For tutorials and other handy tips, you can also visit the online Blackboard Support Center.

Q. I've forgotten my password to log onto Blackboard. How do I get it?

A. You may reset your password using the "Forgot you password" link in the Blackboard login section. Otherwise, you can contact Jason Nicosia (x2573; nicosia@uchc.edu).

Q. How do I get an organization created in Blackboard?

A. You may request that an organization be created by contacting Jason Nicosia (x2573; nicosia@uchc.edu).

Q. Who posts the course material in Blackboard?

A. Faculty members are responsible for posting and maintaining their own material on Blackboard. The FITS staff will be happy to help answer faculty members' questions and offer training sessions on the use of Blackboard.