BLACKBOARD UPGRADE
The upgrade has been completed successfully.
If you have any questions about the upgrade, contact our support desk at 936.294.2780 or blackboard@shsu.edu. Use the links below to check out the changes:
BLACKBOARD'S "NEW LOOK" LANDING PAGE
Blackboard's landing page has been streamlined and reconfigured in order to conform to accessibility guidelines. In order to ensure that all users have the optimal experience when accessing Blackboard, the order of the modules has been adjusted. Highlighted below you will see that the My Courses module has been moved to the left-hand side of the screen just above the My Organizations module. Other modules have also been rearranged to comply with accessibility guidelines.
Course Menu (Buttons)
Changes made to course menu buttons in the Teaching Style section of a course will not stick. This means that for the time being, changing the color or the shape of menu buttons will not work. According to Blackboard, Inc. a patch for this “new bug” will be released later this year.
Set Grade Center Due Dates
This tool allowed Blackboard instructors to provide due dates for items in the grade center without having to individually edit each assignment/activity. This was a plugin or “Building Block” in Blackboard that was developed by another university. Unfortunately, that institution is no longer supporting updates to the tool.
The good news, is that Blackboard already has a feature that allows you to update due dates and availability dates in one place! Blackboard’s “Date management” tool will let you adjust dates by the semester/term start date, number of days, or list all days for review. See Blackboard’s help documentation on Date Management for further assistance.
Course Themes
Course themes are no longer supported in order to encourage accessibility in the online space. Instructors can still make adjustments to the course navigation menu text and background color.
Full-Screen Grade Center
Some monitor resolutions will not allow instructors to scroll down while in Full-Screen view. Until a fix is provided, the workaround is to zoom out on the browser(zooming us usually done with Ctrl and "+" or "-", or by accessing the browser's View menu).
The following documentation (resources, videos and tutorials) were developed by Blackboard and SHSU Online. This documentation highlights the new features and enhancements in release 9.1 Q4 2018.
What's New in Blackboard Learn 9.1 Q4 2018?
- Mark Attendance in Blackboard
- Deleting Multiple Grade Center Columns
- Full Screen View of Grade Center*
- See Discussion Board replies "To Me"
- Submission Receipt Enhancements
- Mobile Grading with Blackboard Instructor App
SaaS Deployment
Blackboard Learn is hosted, delivered, and managed using a modern cloud-computing infrastructure as the environment for our software-as-a-service (SaaS) deployment.....(Learn More)
For More on the Blackboard Changes
Additional guides and resources will be found in the Teaching Online With Blackboard support organization and the EesySoft Help icon. "What's New in Blackboard" faculty development sessions will be available in Spring 2019.