Towson University is pleased to announce the upgrade to version seven of the Blackboard learning environment. Over the next few months the new system will be set up with enhanced functionality, including many features requested by the faculty. New capabilities include:
Gradebook Feedback
This enables faculty members to add feedback to grades posted in the Blackboard Gradebook.
Discussion Board
This enables faculty to add grades to discussion threads or topics.
Early Warning System
This enables faculty to set up alerts for students having academic difficulty.
Critical Downtime Information:
From 1:50 a.m. Sunday, August 12 to noon Monday, August 20 all Blackboard services will be unavailable. During the downtime the team will migrate all of the current courses and data to the new version, perform final product updates and configuration changes, and properly test the integrity of the migration.
How You Should Prepare:
Please complete the following steps before August 12 unless you are using Blackboard for an ongoing course. If you are using Blackboard for a current course, please wait until course completion to perform the steps.
1. Download a copy of the grade book for each course site you own. Instructions for the download are available at {http://wwwnew.towson.edu/adminfinance/OTS/Training/documentation/Blackboard/Version%206/Exporting_Your_Gradebook_Faculty.pdf}
2. Make an archive copy of your course sites. Instructions for archiving are available at {http://wwwnew.towson.edu/adminfinance/OTS/Training/documentation/Blackboard/Version%206/Archive_Course_Faculty.pdf}
3. Verify that each course site has been cleaned out (all users have been removed from the site). Instructions for cleaning out courses are available at {http://wwwnew.towson.edu/adminfinance/OTS/Training/documentation/Blackboard/Version%206/Recycle_Course_Faculty.pdf}
4. Make a list of all of the course sites you own, with specific information on each course ID number (i.e., MKTG418G). Log into Blackboard, click on the ?Courses? tab, print out the page and keep it for your records.
5. Review the ?My Responsibilities? document for using Blackboard, which can be found at
{http://wwwnew.towson.edu/adminfinance/OTS/training/documentation/Blackboard/Version%206/Instructor_Responsibilites_Faculty.pdf}
6. Retrieve information on the version seven features. Workshops and documentation for these features are being created, and an email and Daily Digest announcement will be sent out when they are available.
Full descriptions of the new version’s features can be found at the “Behind the Blackboard” web site: {http://behind.blackboard.com.} Faculty may also download the full instructor manual for version seven at {http://library.blackboard.com/docs/r7/70/en_US/instructor/bbas_r7_0_instructor.pdf}
For additional information on using the new Blackboard version, please contact Patricia Halstead at {blackboard@towson.edu}. Subsequent announcements will be posted in the Daily Digest as the project progresses.
