Tech Tip Tuesday - Adding Content To The Discussion Boards (Student Tutorial)

This week's tip focuses on teaching our students how to correctly add content into discussion boards without adding any extra code that could blank out any replies down the road.  This is a very frustrating issue we've been dealing with in the past month or so.  We hope the internet gods come up with a solution soon but in the meantime...

If you plan to share this post with your students please DO NOT share this blog post (this blog is for faculty not students) but just copy the info below into an announcement.

"If this past semester you've seen discussion board replies being 'blanked' out then this tutorial will help you troubleshoot what is happening to prevent it in the future.  We all know how frustrating the discussion boards can be when extra code has been accidentally added in.  This actually isn't a Blackboard issue it's an internet browser issue and more specifically a security issue.  The government has recently cracked down on internet browsers to prevent plagiarism of websites.  Since you, as an online learning student, are trying to create content online this hits us especially hard.

We see this most frequently when students and instructors are replying to an initial discussion board post.  The replies are submitted but then nothing shows up.  It actually isn't the people replying that have 'bad code' but the person that initially started the thread.  The bad part is students can't edit their post to fix it so once the damage has been done it becomes a trickle down effect.

We still require students to use Firefox.  We also would like to require users at this time to use a real internet browser for discussion board posts not a tablet or mobile browser.  Even on Windows 8 make sure you are not using the 'tile mode browser' but the real windows browser until this gets straightened out.  Please view this video tutorial.  It will help you double check your discussion board posts before you submit.  

If you need help please submit a ticket to tech connection."

Tech Tip Tuesday - Copy and Paste

We wanted to bring to your attention an issue that many are facing in their courses.  While the timing is perfect, with the recent BlackBoard update, it actually isn't a BlackBoard issue.  Many of us (including myself) have developed the bad habit of copying and pasting into Blackboard.  In the past this hasn't been a big deal, with the exception of occasional crazy formatting and characters it would give us.

The government is trying to crack down on plagiarism and copy write issues by having web browsers lock down their copy and paste ability.  Firefox, our preferred browser, is especially taking steps to prevent this.  We have seen issues with this mainly in the discussion board area so far.  

Some issues we have seen:

• The initial discussion board post is copied in and looks fine but any responses are 'blank' even though they typed something
• A discussion board response is pasted in and becomes 'blank' when saved

This weeks video tutorial, by Nadine Edwards, explains how to correctly insert text into Blackboard to avoid this issue.

If you have already fallen victim to this issue then you are able to fix it yourself with these steps.

1. When you hover over a 'blank' discussion board post you will see the options to 'Reply, Quote, Edit and Delete' 
   
2. Click 'Edit'  *NOTE: Student's, for good reason, do not have the ability to edit a post, only instructors
3. Copy the post and paste it into Word or an external source
4. Using the steps in the video tutorial above use the html button in the content editor to paste back in the content

Please feel free to share this with other instructors and your students.  We all need to follow best practices when it comes to copy and paste.

Tech Tip Tuesday - How To Copy and Paste Into Blackboard

Oh copy and paste!  How you have saved the day on so many occasions.  Would you agree this is one of the best word processing tools ever invented?!?!

The problem with copying and pasting from other sources into Blackboard is that they don't always agree with each other.  Many times it adds a weird html code and then when you click submit it doesn't look how you intended.   To avoid this issue one simple, extra step is needed in Blackboard.  In the long run this will save you time down the road and make you the toast of your instructional designers world!

View document on how to Copy and Paste in Blackboard

View video tutorial to see it in action.