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Blackboard Staff Guides

If you are a new member of Staff – please read the QuickStart Guide for Staff
If you are a current member of Staff – please read the Blackboard Course Pre-Flight Checks

Here is a full list of our guides for staff:

FAQs

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There are ten levels of complexity for AI-generated content. In HE we should look at levels 7 and above.

  1. Early primary school 
  2. Late primary school 
  3. Early middle school 
  4. Late middle school 
  5. Early high school 
  6. Late high school
  7. Undergraduate lower division
  8. Undergraduate upper division 
  9. Graduate level 
  10. Advanced PhD level 

If you have a question that has been graded in a test and you decide, for whatever reason, that you want to give everyone who completed it a full mark. In edit mode view the question – click on the three dots and select “Edit/Regrade” option – this will had a check box next to the text “Give full credit to everyone” – if you select the box and save then everyone who took that question will get the full marks.

New functionality has been added to the standard Blackboard Assignment – which gives you the ability to enable Turnitin. See our Blackboard Assignments with Turnitin guide for further details.

If you have your content organised into folders in your file store – left mouse click and drag the folder onto the top of the Blackboard content area. It will hover over areas and if you are happy with the location release the hold on the folder. This will add the folder and all the content directly into Blackboard.

Yes you can do this now. This is a new feature to add questions into a Blackboard document and allow students to get instant feedback. Read the Guide on Knowledge Check Questions.

Yes you can add a link for students to click on and access any live Module Evaluations. To do this Add Content > Content Market and click on the plus button in the Student MEQ Link – Course Tool item. The icon is a royal blue square with the text blue on it. Make it available to students and refer to it during any module evaluation window. Remember that as a Staff member you can access all module evaluation tools from the Tools menu in the black left hand panel.

Reviewing student activity helps inform decisions in academic disputes and aids in troubleshooting. You can also analyze the course participation of students at risk. Instructors and other higher roles can use the student activity log to check what a particular student did in a course.  Go to the Gradebook and locate the student. You view the activity from the third Activity tab and download the results if needed.

https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Ultra/Performance/Student_Activity_Log

Blackboard has a default maximum file upload size of 2560 MB.

In order to receive emails when new posts are added to discussion boards, you must:

  1. Ensure you’ve clicked the Follow button on the Discussion board.
  2. Enable Discussion activity notifications in your Notification Settings. You must set this in both:
    • Stream notifications: tick all of the Discussion activity options
    • Email notifications: set it to email me straight away and tick all of the Discussion activity options.
Stream notifications enabled for discussion activity in Blackboard
Stream notification settings: Tick both options: New Discussion and Discussion activity to ensure you don’t miss a Discussion post.
email notifications settings for discussion activity in blackboard.
Email notification settings: Set the email notifications to email you straight away, and ensure all Discussion activity options are ticked.

Start in the module you want to copy to and click the top set of 3 dots next to Course Content. Select Copy Content, then locate the module where the original source material is and eventually open file location of the folder/document/assessment you want to copy in the sidebar menu on the right.

All courses in Blackboard tend to be related to taught module codes, however, there are occasions where a non-standard course might be appropriate. Please read the Guide for getting approval for a non Standard course.

If you wish to remove an Instructor, Module Administrator or any other staff member from your course. You must first edit their role to be a Student. To do this open the Class Register – locate the staff member and click on the three dots at the end of the row and select Member Information. From the side panel that opens revealing that persons information, click on the Role drop down and select Student from the list. Then save the change. Then repeat access but at that point click on the Delete icon in the Member card to remove member.

Module Leaders have a role of Primary. This means that they appear at the top of the list of Instructors. To do this open the course register and view all. View all Instructors and next to the Module Leaders entry – click on the three dots to edit member settings – once the panel has opened tick the Make Primary selection box. This works with 2 Primary aka 2 Module Leaders.

Yes there is – it is a single App for both Staff and Students. From 8 October 2024 the app is called Blackboard and is available on the Apple and Google Play Stores. If you have the old Learn App you just need to update it. You have to enter under institution: Durham University Ultra to then authenticate with your CIS userid and password. It is 2FA so you will need to approve it.

Note – we do not advocate you doing any high stake assessment submissions on the App – always use a desktop/laptop.

The search icon is so subtle you may have missed it! Look to the top right of the screen and you will see a Magnifying Glass icon which, when clicked, displays a search box

Screenshot of the Search icon at the top right of Learn Ultra allowing search within the module.

Please note that the following files are not permitted to be uploaded directly to Blackboard. These file types are:

.webm,.mkv,.flv,.vob,.ogv,.ogg,.drc,.gif,.gifv,.mng,.avi,.MTS,.M2TS,.TS,.mov,.qt,.wmv,.yuv,.rm,.rmvb,.viv,.asf,.amv,.mp4,.m4p,.m4v,.mp2,.mpe,.mpv,.mpg,.mpeg,.m2v,.svi,.3gp,.3g2,.mxf,.roq,.nsv,.f4v,.f4p,.f4a,.f4b for video

.aa,.aac,.aax,.act,.aiff,.alac,.amr,.ape,.au,.awb,.dss,.dvf,.flac,.gsm,.iklax,.ivs,.m4a,.m4b,.mmf,.movpkg,.mp3,.mpc,.msv,.nmf,.mogg,.opus,.ra,.raw,.rf64,.sln,.tta,.voc,.vox,.wav,.wma,.wv,.web,.8svx,.cda for audio

Instead please utilise the Panopto/Encore tools.

If you have set a preferred name with HR then this should appear on your Microsoft Teams option – to get it to appear in Blackboard you need to edit your profile and where your name appears click on the pencil icon that appears to edit it. Tick to show the Additional Name (which is your set preferred name). View the Blackboard Help Guide on Edit Your Profile.

If you haven’t set a preferred name then please email HR and request a preferred name – once they have made the change – and you can see it filter through to Microsoft Teams you can then edit your Blackboard profile to set the Additional name to make your preferred name appear.

Whichever Faculty you are in please email:
Faculty of Arts & Humanities – hr.artshumanities@durham.ac.uk
Faculty of Social Sciences & Health – hr.ssh@durham.ac.uk
Faculty of Business– hr.dubs@durham.ac.uk
Faculty of Science – hr.science@durham.ac.uk
Colleges & Wider Student Experience Division – hr.colleges@durham.ac.uk
Professional Support Services – hr.pss@durham.ac.uk

duo, also known as Durham University Online, was the older version of the current Virtual Learning Environment Blackboard. Instead of copying all the content/courses from duo to the new platform Blackboard – we archived courses and loaded duo onto a cloud platform enabling students who took courses in the past the ability to view their course content. This will eventually be archived. If you have any queries about duo then please contact the IT Service Desk.

CIS is responsible for the rollover of courses (copying course into a new shell) and this process typically occurs in early July, based upon a list that is provided by departmental administrators. Speak in the first instance to your Admin team who liaise with CIS.

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