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Communication: Discussion Board Discussion Board is a communication tool that can be used to enhance the interactivity within a distance learning course. Topics are posted to the Discussion Board that course participants can reply to and discuss on-line. This feature is similar to a Chat but is designed for asynchronous use so course participants do not have to be online at the same time to have a conversation. An additional advantage of the Discussion Board is that conversations are logged and organized. Conversations are grouped into threads that contain a main posting and all related replies for easy retrieval. Creating a Discussion Board 1. Go to Control Panel > Discussion Board (under Course Tools) 2. Click the link of the course.
3. Click Add Forum button and enter the forum title and descriptions. 4. Choose the appropriate forum settings and click Submit to create the forum. To better manage the forum, you should Uncheck the default setting which allows users to post an anonymous message in the forum. You may also Uncheck the default setting which allows users to create new threads (subtopics) within the forum. Posting Messages in the Discussion Board 1. When a discussion is created within a forum, it is called a thread. Click Add New Thread to post a message in this forum 2. Enter the subject and message of your thread. If you include HTML tags in your message, be sure to click the option HTML at the bottom of the message. You can also attach a file to your message by clicking on Browse to locate the file. 3. Click
Submit to post the message. 5. The full message view displays the author’s name and email address as well as the date and time posted. In the right hand corner, you can see how many times this message has been read. By clicking the link of the attached file, you can download and review the file. 6. Click Reply to post a comment to this message. The subject line automatically refers to the previous message. Enter the message text and then click Submit to post the message to the discussion board. 7. Here are the threaded messages displaying in the Discussion Board. 8. To view the Forum from the Student View, click the Course Name on the top of the Navigation Trail. 9. Go to course menu, find the Discussion Board button. Students will NOT see the Add Forum, Modify, or Remove button. These buttons are only available to the instructor. Forum View The forum view lists the threads in the forum and includes several options for displaying and managing threads. The forum can be viewed in one of two contexts: Tree View or List View. This choice remains in effect until the user changes it; it can be changed at any time. These choices are available above the Action Bar. Tree View: Tree View presents the thread starter messages and their child messages. The child messages can be expanded and collapsed by using the plus/minus icon next to each message. Unread threads and posts are displayed in bold type; if a thread starter message has unread children, then the thread starter message is displayed in bold if its children are collapsed. This is same as the format of discussion board in Blackboard 6. Most of the faculty prefer to use this format.
List View: presents the list of threads in a tabular format. The threads can be sorted by clicking the carat at the top of each column.
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.
During the
process of adding a thread, click Grade Thread and provide
the Points possible.
Message/Reply Ratings 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. This rating can be used for estimating grades on a post or just to find the best posts in a thread quickly.
Students can rate their peers' posts from a scale of one to five stars.
Thread moderating 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 and 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. To review and access students' post, the instructor clicks the button Moderate Forum.
Students' posts are listed in the Moderation Queue; click Moderate to review the posts.
After reviewing students' post, the instructor can release the post by clicking on Publish. 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.
Note: 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 begin using the Discussion Board immediately and do not have to wait for the instructor to create a forum and begin a thread. 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. This feature is available to all users with a forum role other than “blocked” if the feature is enabled for the forum. When creating a forum or modifying a forum’s settings, instructors have the option of allowing students to subscribe to a forum or a thread.
Within a forum or a thread, students click Subscribe.
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:
Go to Control Panel > Performance Dashboard.
Click the number
under the column of Discussion Board to see the detailed information
about the user’s participation in the forum. Managing Forum User Manage Forum User allows instructors to modify a course participant’s role within the forum. Instructors can assign a course participant the Forum Moderator privilege or block a course participant from posting messages to a forum. Note: The course instructor is automatically assigned with the Permanent Forum Manager Privilege.
To modify a course participant’s role in the forum setting, select a role of the drop-down list next to the individual student and click Submit.
A confirmation note appears on the top of the page that the individual student's forum role changed to forum Moderator.
Note: The moderator has editorial rights in a forum so that they can create threads, edit postings or remove messages and threads. A moderator may be a student, TA or the instructor. You may also choose to block certain users from participating in the forum. Only the forum administrator or the permanent forum administrator (instructor) can block, or unblock a user. Additional Features In addition, there are several enhancements to already-existing features in Discussion Boards:
What is Grade Center: The Grade Center is a tool that is accessible to instructors, teaching assistants, and graders in a course. The Grade Center replaces the Gradebook in previous Blackboard versions. The Grade Center in Blackboard is a dynamic and interactive tool, allowing entries, views, and email correspondence to occur directly from a main page. For the most part, the Grade Center functions just like the old gradebook. However, there are many enhancements that greatly increase the Grade Center's usability. One is the ability to "Exempt Grades" as you see fit. Another is the ability to create different grade center views and to manage and organize the Grade Center views. Other additional improvements include an easy way to email students from within the Grade Center, keep a running total, a weighted total, and a final total score columns, and the ability to always retain the original score, and more. These are just some of the many ways the Grade Center has improved. Download and read the below for full details on how to best use the Grade Center for your many needs. Grade Center Features:
Grade Cener Tutorials:
Downloading Grades 1. Go to
Control Panel > Assessment > Grade Center
8. The next dialog box that appears is the second of three steps to import the data into the spreadsheet. Check the delimiters radio button to Comma as shown below by the red arrow.
9. When the third dialog box appears, check to be sure the General radio button is selected under Column Data Format. Click the Finish button to complete the importation of the data.
10.
When the spreadsheet opens, you may still need to enlarge the
columns to view the gradebook item names, student names, etc. Copying Previous Course Content into a New Course When new courses are created in Blackboard, they are initially empty. As an instructor, you can copy previous course content into your new course. 1. Enter the previous
course you are copying from (you are copying this course to the
empty course). 4. Click Copy
Course Materials into an Existing Course. 5. Find the
destination course by entering the course ID or click Browse
and search by course ID (e.g. VW286.HIS.101) or your own user ID.
Click Select next to the course into which you wish
to copy your content.
6. Check the box next
to each kind of content you want to copy.
7. Do NOT
check the box next to Enrollment since that could
copy an old semester’s student roster into your new course.
8. Click Submit to finish. Note: You will receive an email from learn@vccs.edu about the Course Copy process. Archiving Blackboard Courses The Archive Course tool lets instructors archive a complete copy of their courses (including user records and user interactions) and save it in .zip format. These archive files can be stored on a disc or on a computer and reloaded into Blackboard for future use. Instructors can keep copies of courses for future reference and reuse them when needed. Archiving a course does not remove the original course from the Blackboard system. Archive Course is useful to maintain a record of a course after it has been taught. 1. Enter the course in
Blackboard which you want to archive.
5. Review the course ID and click on Submit.
6. It will take several minutes for the action of archiving the course to proceed. You will see an .zip file listed in the Export/Archive Manager page. Right click on this link and select Save Link As or Save Target as to save this zip file to your local computer.
Note: Archived packages are designed to provide a permanent record of a course. Archive course retains both instructor- and student-created data. To save course materials to teach another set of students at a later time, use the Export Course and Import Course features. To restore an archived course to the Blackboard learning system, please contact the Blackboard Administrator. Exporting a Blackboard Course The Export Course
feature creates a package of the course materials that can later be
imported into the Blackboard Learning System to be used to teach another
course with the same content. Export 3. You will be guided to the Export/Archive Manager page. Click Export.
4. Select the option for each content area and tool in the course that should be exported and click Submit. Note: If Assessment links appear in Content Areas, then this option must be selected or the link to the Assessment will be broken. 5. It will take several minutes for the action of archiving course to proceed. You will see a .zip file listed in the Export/Archive Manager page. Right click on this link and select Save Link As or Save Target as to save this zip file to your local computer.
Note: The exported .zip file is not a "stand alone" site in the sense that it can be viewed in a browser as a functioning Blackboard course. The export file would have to be imported back into a Blackboard course shell. Importing a
Blackboard course 1. Enter the course in
which you want to import a course package. Go to Control
Panel > Course Options > Import Package 2. Browse to locate
the course package. Note: Importing large
files may take a long time. 3. Select materials to include in the import process and click Submit. |
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