COCC's Academic Computing Support Department and Information Technology Services Department have upgraded our course management system from Blackboard Basic Edition, version 7.3 to Blackboard ENTERPRISE Edition, version 8. Blackboard 8 Tutorials
What’s the difference?
For the instructor, here is a list of a FEW of the improvements/enhancements:
· Grade Center (electronic gradebook): The Bb Gradebook in version 8 is called the Grade Center and is a vast improvement. I expect that users of MicroGrade/WebGrade will find they WANT to begin using the Blackboard Grade Center.
In the Bb Grade Center, you can have extra credit, you can exempt grades, you can enter grades and manipulate the Grade Center much easier. You can also set up the Grade Center to automatically email students who need intervention OR who are performing well and you want to recognize their effort. Of all of the tools in Bb, this one is the one that is most different from the versions we have had in the past. You’ll want to come to training, or watch recorded tutorials on the Grade Center. Getting Started with the Grade Center
· Early Warning System: Define rules that measure user performance based key performance metrics within a course: (view a demo on how to use Bb's Early Warning System)
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Item Score / Grade
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Item Due Date
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Course Attendance
· Performance Dashboard: View user progress details for each performance measurement.
· Adaptive Release: Provides a way for you to release course content to students based on a set of rules you configure. The rules may be related to content availability, date & time, individual students and student groups, scores or attempts on any Grade Center item, or review status of another item in the course.
· Integrates with Turn It In: From within your Bb course, you can create Turn It In Assignments. With Turn It In you can check originality and/or to use the GradeMark tool (mark up assignments that are turned in) and/or use the Rubric Tool and/or use the Peer Review tool. All of this goes right into the Grade Center. You’re gonna LOVE this!
· Grade Discussion Board Posts: If you mark a discussion to be grade enabled, you can easily grade posts by students and those grades go right into the Grade Center. It helps you easily gather all of the posts a student has produced.
· Grade Discussion Board Posts: If you mark a discussion to be grade enabled, you can easily grade posts by students and those grades go right into the Grade Center. It helps you easily gather all of the posts a student has produced.
Another exciting change is that we will have a Test Server (a place for you to develop your courses and keep clean templates of the courses you design) and a Production Server (the place where your active classes will take place).
The new Bb system looks and feels very much like the version with which you are familiar. The Gradebook (now called Grade Center) is significantly different (a vast improvement). HOWEVER, you CAN set the Grade Center to the non-interactive mode, and you’ll have the look and feel of the Gradebook that is in the version of Bb that we have been using the past 4 years.