Blackboard Upgrade
Benefits of the Blackboard Upgrade:
- Automatic re-grading of tests when test questions/answers are changed
- Quick links to other courses from within a course
- Better activity reporting for courses and for students
- Clean, uncluttered page layouts
- Quick Setup Guide makes it easy to change the course name and use different themes and structures
- Choose from over 50 professionally designed course themes
- Choose from multiple course structures to customize your menu scheme
Automatic re-grading of tests
In previous versions of Blackboard, if the instructor changed the answer to a Blackboard test question after students had submitted results, the system didn't update the points awarded in the previous submissions. Now it re-grades the submitted tests automatically to reflect the change(s).
Quick links to other courses from within a course
A new drop-down menu at the top of the menu box allows instructors to jump from one course to another easily. This quick navigation option allows instructors to perform the same task across multiple Blackboard courses quickly.
Additional activity reports
Additional reporting options are available through the Control Panel > Evaluation > Course Reports choice. The following reports can be targeted to your particular needs with various run options:
- All user activity within content areas
This report displays a summary of all user activity inside Content Areas for the course. - Course activity overview
Course Activity Overview displays overall activity within a single course, sorted by student and date. Data includes the total and average time spent per user and the total amount of activity the user had in the course. - Overall summary of user activity
The report displays user activity for all areas of the course, as well as activity dates, times and days of the week. - Student overview for single course
Student Overview for Single Course displays an individual student's activity within a course, sorted by date. Data includes the total overall time the student spent in the course as well as detailed information about the student's activity, such as which items and Content Areas the student accessed and the time spent on each.
Clean, uncluttered page layouts
Blackboard has a "new, yet familiar" design. In addition to the clean, uncluttered look, instructors can employ new course themes and/or structures using the Quick Setup Guide.
Quick Setup Guide:
Use Control Panel > Customization > Quick Setup Guide. The quick setup guide gives instructors the ability to change the course title / description, the course structure (menu organization) and the course theme (color palette) in one handy place.
Course Themes:
Check out the new professionally-designed course themes that employ different color palettes. To change the course theme, click on the icon in the upper right corner of the course page and choose the desired color palette. Instructors can also access the new course themes through Control Panel > Customization > Quick Setup Guide or Course Themes link. (See above for example screen shot in Quick Setup Guide.)
Course Structures:
The course structures change the course menu to different organizational schemes. Clicking through the available structures in the Quick Setup Guide displays each option's settings. If you change to a new structure, you can customize the structure further by tweaking the menu.
