ITTC Online Magazine

There are several courses available at different levels of instruction for you to register to attend and most are 1.5 hours in length.   We also offer many “Open Lab” hours where you can come and receive a one-on-one training session if you wish.  

For more information, please go to our website at www2.astate.edu/ittc and at the bottom of the home page you can select to view our Scheduler where you will see all the class listings.   Many are repeated on different days of the week and different times of the day so as to make it easier for you to attend.   Instructions on how to register to reserve your seat are also available on the Scheduler.

We hope to see you soon at the ITTC.

Have a good start of the semester.

Henry Torres

Director, Interactive Teaching & Technology Center

Dean B. Ellis Library Suite 301

Arkansas State University

Ph: (870) 972-2334  

Below are the instructions (from ITS) to merge several sections of your Bb 8 course shells into one course shell:

Dear Colleagues,

You are receiving this message because we have identified a course or section in Banner that you teach as either dual/merged or cross-listed.

IT and ITTC have been actively engaged in making several improvements to the Blackboard Learning Management System (LMS).  As you are aware from recent communications, a new Blackboard LMS platform will roll out for the Spring of 2010.  This new platform is called “Blackboard Learn”.  Blackboard Learn will provide many new features and enhancements, as well as resolving many technical and functional issues of the current Blackboard environment.  One of the features will be the native capability to merge multiple course shells into a single shell.  In the interim period as we are preparing to move to the new platform, we have made a change in the enrollment process in which we need assistance from some of you.  Because we now auto-enroll students and faculty in courses/sections based on information in Banner, the capability to merge courses in the traditional method is no longer viable.  If you teach a course that is merged with multiple courses, this message applies to you. So for instance, if you teach ACCT4113001 and ACCT5113001, and you traditionally combine these courses and call the course Tax Accounting II, this message applies to you.  

Please follow the steps below in order to merge courses and/or sections into a single course shell in Blackboard.

• We have created a new course merge utility that can/will merge courses and/or sections.  Faculty wishing to merge their courses/sections in Blackboard into one course shell can use the utility at the following URL: https://apps.astate.edu/blackboard.
• Once you log into the site using your ASU email address, you will see all of the courses for which you are listed in Banner as the instructor of record.  If a course or section is not listed, then you need to contact your department chairperson to make the assignment in Banner.
• Select the courses that are to be merged into a single course shell, and click on the single arrow to move them to the selected courses box on the right.
• Once the courses are listed as desired in the selected course window, give the course shell a name in the “New BB shell” text box and click merge.  This is the name that the course will appear as in Blackboard.
• The page will update and display the courses that have been merged.
• Once this process is complete, the new merged course shell will be created in the next update window. (7AM, 12Noon, 5PM, 12Midnight)

Thank you for your assistance with this matter.  If you need any help with this process, please contact the IT Helpdesk at 870.972.3933 or by email at helpdesk@astate.edu.

As you should have heard by now, Bb6 will be unavailable for your students beginning this fall semester.  You will then have until December 2009 to get a backup of your files before it will be gone forever.  For more information on migrating from Bb 6 to Bb 8 check out this tutorial.

Reusing and Migrating Files in Blackboard: Helpful Hints

As we transition from Blackboard 6 to Blackboard 8 the need to seamlessly migrate our course content is an area of emphasis for the Interactive Teaching and Technology Center (ITTC).  The migration of Blackboard 6 files to version 8 is quick and easy. On our website www2.astate.edu/ittc  in our online tutorial section we have detailed instructions on migrating from Blackboard 6 to version 8.

Migration of Blackboard 6 files to version 8

Before you start the migration process ensure that the following is in place:  Course shells have been created for you in Blackboard 8 (www.blackboard@astate.edu). These empty course shells will be used to house the migrated course (s) or to set-up new courses.

-If it is important to you to have a record of last semester’s course, you will want to complete the “Archive” protocol before any migration. Archiving a course allows you to save a copy of your course in its original/current format. This will ensure that you have an intact copy of your course secure for later retrieval if needed. 

-Be sure to empty out any submitted materials, for example, discussion boards with their postings, or all the work submitted to the Digital Drop Box (Alternatively, you can simply choose not to migrate your discussion boards or Digital Drop Box, and then re-create new ones in your BB8 course.)

-Make sure that all materials in the BB6 course that you plan to migrate are “available”

Exporting the Blackboard 6 Course:

-Sign into Blackboard (Bb) 6 and go to your course

-Go to Control Panel, to Course Options, to Export Course

-Select the course materials you want to export to Bb8

-Click Submit

-Click the Download Link and save the course file to your Desktop (creating a Zip file)

-Log out of Bb6

Importing the Course Files to Blackboard 8

-Sign into Blackboard 8 and click on an empty/unused shell

-Click  on Control Panel, go to Course Options, to Import Package

-Under Select Package, click on “Choose File” and select the Bb6 file previously saved to your desktop

-Under Select Course Materials – check the materials to be imported

-Click Submit

-On completion of this process, an email confirming the successful transfer of file to Blackboard 8 is sent to your mailbox

Reusing/Recycling a Blackboard Course

Recycle – allows you to reuse everything in a course just as you set it up the previous semester it was used, except that it allows you to erase all student names, submitted information such as Discussion Boards, Announcements and Digital Drop box submissions. With recycle you have the option to use the same name of the course and the same course shell. Once you have selected the items you want to remove from the course you type “Remove” and select “Submit”. Ensure that you have an archived copy of your course before you recycle it. Once you complete the recycle process any items removed from a course is permanently deleted. 

Important: Remember to convert all your courses to Blackboard 8. Blackboard 6 will be sunset beginning summer 2009 and will be turned off December 2009. For a short video tutorial on how to do this, go to our website and look under Online Tutorials.