The Turnitin assignment functionality has been switched off within the testing version of the new Blackboard system. This action has been taken to avoid any unintentional modifications to Turnitin assignments that exist within the current Blackboard system as Turnitin regards the two distinct systems as the same.

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The 'SITS Enrolment' tool is temporarily unavailable in the new version of the Blackboard system due to incompatibility issues.

Instructors/Teaching Assistants can enrol students using the USERS > Enrol User functionality.

Work will begin during the year to develop an edition of this tool which is compatible with version 9 of the Blackboard system.

The Digital Drop Box functionality is not a component of version 9 of the Blackboard system. As a result, once the new system is made available in August 2009, this functionality will no longer be available for either staff or students.

Students that are making use of the Digital Drop Box feature within their modules are advised to save any douments from these areas to their personal file stores ('Z' drive) or move them to their personal area within the Blackboard Content Collection.

More information...

Due to incompatibility issues, the 'Add Users by Role' functionality has been removed from the latest version of the Blackboard system .

The creators of this functionality extension (Durham University) are currently working to produce a Blackboard 9 compatabile version.

However, the new version of Blackboard contains functionality that largely supersedes this tool. This new functionality can be accessed via:

Control Panel > Users and Groups > Users

1. The 'List All Users' tool has been removed from the latest version of the Blackboard system due to incompatibility issues.
2. The ability to list all users within a course site via: Control Panel > List / Modify Users > List All is not a feature of version 9 of the Blackboard system.

1. Durham University, who are the creators of this tool, are currently working to produce an edition that is compatible with version 9 of the Blackboard system.
2. To list all users within a course site access the Grade Center via Control Panel > Evaluation > Grade Center.

The 'Meeting Sign Up Form' functionality has been removed from the latest version of the Blackboard system due to incompatibility issues. This functionality was not a native feature of the Blakcboard system having been produced by a commercial software vendor.

Unfortunately, at present, there is no replacement for this functionality.

The 'Student View Account' tool is temporarily unavailable in the new version of the Blackboard system due to incompatibility issues. Any student view accounts that were created previously using the tool will be fully functional in the new version of the system. 

Work is currently ongoing to develop an edition of this tool which is compatible with version 9 of the Blackboard system.

The font of text that is added as a description of content items such as folders or documents cannot be changed using the system text editor. If modified in the text editor, the font may appear to have changed but alterations will not be visible once submitted.

It is hoped that this issue will be addressed through future updates from the system vendor.

When creating or modifying content items, such as folders, documents or external links, within a content area, the colour of the content item title cannot be changed from the default. If modified whilst editing, the colour may appear to have changed, but alterations will not be visible once the edit is submitted.

It is hoped that this issue will be addressed through future updates from the system vendor.

Content items (e.g. Word, PowerPoint, PDF) cannot be saved directly by right-clicking with the mouse and selecting save.

A simple workaround is to first open the file and then save from within the open application (e.g. Microsoft Word).

It is hoped that this issue will be addressed through future updates from the system vendor.

When attempting to use the 'Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course' functionality from Control Panel > Course Copy, it may appear as though the copying has not been carried out. Users may be returned to the copying screen that they had just previously submitted. This is a known issue with version 9 of the Blackboard system.

Option 1

If users experience this issue they are advised to attempt the copying process once they have been returned to the copying screen following their first attempt.

Option 2

Alternatively, users could utilise the Export/Import functionality.

Within the source course site:

Control Panel > Packages and Utilities > Export/Archive Course > Export > Then select what is to be copied > Download package to copy

Within the destination course:

Control Panel > Packages and Utilities > Import Package/View Logs > Import Package > Browse for package that was exported from source course site

It is hoped that this issue will be addressed through future updates from the system vendor.

The order of forums in course discussion board areas will not be preserved from version 7 to version 9 of the Blackboard system. The display order is by alphanumeric name of forum.

The workaround to this issue is to modify forum titles by prefixing them with numerical values to produce the display order you require.

When creating or modifying a group, if an apostrophe is used in the group name, users with staff privileges will experience display errors when using the Smart Views section of the Grade Center. The Grade Center is the new name for the course Gradebook.

Users should avoid adding apostrophes to group names.

If an assignment is created with the hash character (#) in it's title (eg Assignment #1) an error will occur when the results of an assignment are downloaded from the course Grade Centre.

It is hoped that this issue will be addressed through future updates from the system vendor.

In the meantime, when creating assignments, users are advised not to use the hash character in the title.

There are a number of issues when attempting to clear all users' attempts for a test by clicking on the relevant columns drop down arrow in the Grade Centre. If instructors attempt to use the 'Attempts between dates...' option:

a) Clicking on the calendar icon to select a date range will not display a calendar option.

b) Manually entering a date range using the date fields will not clear any attempts once submitted.

Individual attempts can be cleared by:

1. Hovering over single cells within the relevant test column which represent a single participants test attempts.
2. When a cell is hovered over, instructors can click on a drop down arrow and select 'View Grade Details'.
3. The resulting page will display attempt information for that particular participant for the test in question.
4. Instructors can then click on the 'Clear Attempt' option next to an attempt.

On My Institution Tab > My Courses and Courses Tab > Course List,
you can alter the settings of courses e.g. unselect courses to
prevent them from being displayed in the list, display announcements,
display instructors. However, if you are enrolled in more than 25 courses in the list, changing the settings of any course that has a position greater than 25 in the list fails to retain the settings you selected i.e. if you try to remove the course from display, it will continue to be displayed.

It is hoped that this issue will be addressed through future updates from the system vendor.

Temporary Workaround

You can use the new My Places tool (which is available as a quick link at the top centre of the screen wherever you are within the system) as the place where you access your courses and use the settings to only show courses visited within a certain number of days. To do this:

1. Access My Places
2. Click on the Personal Information link
3. Select Personalise My Places
4. Add the required settings and click Submit
5. The My Places area will now only display the courses that have been visited within the time frame specified.

The production of course statistics reports in Blackboard version 9 takes considerably longer than it does to produce similar reports in previous versions of the system.

Blackboard has implemented this change to prevent issues with system performance.

To generate course statistics reports: Access the Evaluation section of the course Control Panel > select Tracking Reports.

To reduce the amount of time you have to wait to view and access course statistics reports, individual users can be selected and/or the date range can be narrowed to produce much more targeted reports. If course statistics reports are required for a large number of users over an extended period of time, users can initiate a report and leave this running in a separate browser window. Working in Blackboard in a separate window whilst course reports are being generated will not hamper your use of the system.

Blackboard version 9 displays photographs in the Staff/Contact Information area at a size of 150 x 150 pixels. Once Blackboard version 9 is implemented, any existing photographs, or new photographs that are uploaded, will be scaled to this display size regardless of the photographs original pixel size.

If existing photographs appear stretched, they may need to be removed and new photographs uploaded that have a resolution of 150 x 150 pixels.

Photographs can be edited using a photo editing software package called Photoshop Elements 5.0 which is available from the CFS Software 2 Select and Remove Software program which is accessible via the All Programs section of your computers Start menu.

The Content Collection search function is currently not working in version 9 of Blackboard.

When a search is performed a blank page is returned. The expected behaviour would be that folder and file names in the Content Collection would be searched against the key word entered.

The 'Advanced Search' under Tools > Search Content is also affected by this issue. However, the Portfolio Search is working normally.

This issue is being investigated by Blackboard.

The search function within a course site (within course tool areas) is unaffected as it is provided by a third party functionality extension (Learning Objects) and is not linked to the search function in the Blackboard Content Collection.