End of Semester - Spring 2012
ITS is excited to announce the availability of the new streaming media server for audio and video files.
- The old streaming server will be disabled on May 15th.
- All files stored on the old server have been transferred to the new server. However, the links to the media have changed; as of May 15th, links to the old streaming server media will not work. If you would like to use this media in your Summer 2012 courses, contact ITS before May 15th so that we can provide you current links for the files.
- If you no longer want to use existing media that was stored on the old streaming server, your files will be deleted after May 15th.
Click here for additional information. If you have questions, contact ITS at (618) 650-5500 or via email at ftc_help@siue.edu.
ITS suggests the following end of semester activities involving Blackboard:
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If using the Grade Center, manually calculate one or two of your students’ grades to ensure that your Grade Center Total and/or Weighted Total column(s) has/have been set up to calculate correctly.
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Download copies of student assignment submissions.
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Download a copy of your grade center -- including the hidden columns -- at the end of the term.
ITS also offers clarifications and instructions regarding the nuances of the Grade Center. Information on extra credit, items without grades, weighting grades, hidden columns, etc can be found on the Grade Center Tips & Tricks site.
- As part of the commitment to improving teaching and learning technology, SIUE will be upgrading the institutional learning management system from Blackboard 8 to Blackboard 9.1 at the start of the Fall 2012 semester. At the same time, Blackboard Collaborate will replace Wimba Live Classroom as the synchronous and asynchronous web conferencing tool in Bb. For additional information on these upgrades, consult the Bb 9.1 Resource site.
- In order to become familiar with the upgraded Bb system, ITS encourages all teaching faculty and staff to request Bb 9.1 practice shells. These "sandboxes" will allow instructors to gain hands-on experience with the Bb 9.1 features and functions and also enable them to begin scaffolding the structure for Fall 2012 courses.
- Note that Bb 9.1 is currently running on a pilot server. Therefore, course shells for Fall 2012 are not being created at this time. However, instructors will have the option to migrate their sandbox shells from the pilot to the production system prior to the start of the Fall 2012 semester.
- In addition to requesting the sandbox, Blackboard users are still strongly encouraged to attend the information and training sessions ITS will be offering throughout the spring and summer semesters.
- Click here to access the Bb 9.1 sandbox course request form.
- Because of the different architecture of the two systems, no existing Blackboard 8 courses can be exported to Blackboard 9.1. While certain elements of Bb 8 courses (tests, surveys, and pools) can be exported from Bb 8 to Bb 9.1, copying the whole course structure is not possible. Therefore, Bb 8 courses must be rebuilt in Bb 9.1.
- No existing personal Content Collection files will be migrated from Blackboard 8 to Blackboard 9.1. All users are encouraged to follow these instructions for managing and moving existing Content Collection files from Blackboard 8 to Blackboard 9.1.
