By default, anyone listed as an instructor in a course site won’t appear in the list of users who can be added to a group. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to make those folks appear on the Add Users list, just check the Show all users regardless of role box in the search space at the top of the group’s Add Users page, and anyone listed in the course (including instructors and teaching assistants) will be available to add.
The Blackboard plagiarism checking tool, SafeAssign is available as an option on any Assignment. Just click the Submission Details heading,
then check the box labelled Check submissions for plagiarism using SafeAssign to enable SafeAssign plagiarism checking on the assignment.
As the name would indicate, checking the Allow students to view SafeAssign originality report for their attempts makes the originality report available to students.
By default, all student submissions are added to an institutional database. This database is one of the sources student work is compared to when the plagiarism check is performed. If you do not want student submissions included in the database — if the students are submitting a draft of an assignment that will be submitted in final form later in the term, for example — click the Exclude submissions from the Institutional and Global References Databases checkbox.
Blackboard course sites have a student view available to faculty. To switch into Student Preview mode, click the EYE icon in the upper right of your course site:
Clicking this button temporarily turns a faculty account into a student account. While in Student Preview mode, the course site a faculty member sees will be exactly what the student sees. Faculty in Student Preview mode can even perform activities normally restricted to students, such as submit quizzes or assignments.
To exit Student Preview, click the Exit Preview button.
On exiting the preview, you will be confronted with a set of choices.
The default selection, Delete preview user and all data deletes from the course anything you’ve done while in preview mode. The second selection, Keep the preview user and all data, preserves any work you’ve done while in preview mode. Select this option if you want to see, for example, how test results display in the Grade Center. The preview user account will appear in the Grade Center as Yourlastname_PreviewUser.
To delete this data, re-launch preview mode, then exit again choosing the first option.
The Instructional Design Studio has a limited number of laptops that may be checked out by faculty and staff interested in developing online course content. These laptops have Camtasia software installed, which makes it a breeze to record any onscreen activity, from PowerPoint lectures to software tutorials. Our new laptops include high quality touchscreens, making it easy to annotate your presentations, or write or draw your own. Check out a short demo of the software here …
Laptops can be checked out for one week by UDM faculty or staff.
If you’re using Camtasia to create pre-recorded lectures for your students — whether on a checked out laptop or on your own — the Instructional Design Studio would be happy to produce and post those recordings for you, provided they’re less than 20 minutes in length. Turn-around time for Camtasia production is 3 days.
Interested in checking out a laptop or taking advantage of our production services? Contact the Instructional Design Studio for help!
(313) 578-0580 or ids@udmercy.edu
If you’ve never submitted homework through a course site before, this short video will introduce you to the basic process.
