Blackboard Support Center

Support Contacts: Please use the Blackboard Help Request Form or call the Learning Technology support line at 651-638-6500#3. Please be sure to tell us the details including the Course number, Course section/cohort, and the location in the Blackboard course where you are experiencing problems.

Outages: Please NOTE that blackboard.com is paged immediately about an outage and Blackboard is normally brought back into service within 10 - 30 minutes.  PLEASE do NOT contact blackboard.com OR Bethel Blackboard staff. Bethel Blackboard staff will notify the community if an outage lasts longer than 30 minutes. If at any time you have a question about an outage, please contact the Help Desk (651-638-6500 #1,#2)

STUDENTS

The link above leads to information about Blackboard for new and current students, including FAQs, and other tutorials.

• New accounts will not have Blackboard access until the next day AFTER account creation.
• CAPS/GS courses may not be available until after program orientation.
• CAPS/GS Blackboard sites should be available 2 weeks prior to the start of class.
• CAS/Seminary Not all courses have Blackboard sites. Consult your instructor.
• ALL Students: If your course registration does NOT appear in your course schedule on BLink/ Student Academics, then you will NOT have access to the Blackboard component for the course.

FACULTY/STAFF

The link above leads to information about Blackboard for faculty and Staff, including FAQs, course creation and other tutorials.

• Blackboard Course Utility (Faculty Use to Create Your Blackboard Courses & to Add TAs)
  
• Importing Previous Course Material into your new Blackboard Courses
  
• Course Delete Request Form
• Course Removal Schedule and Policy

H1N1 Class Continuity Recommendations

• Use Blackboard email - Communicate with your class or professor
• Use Blackboard Discussions - Have a class general discussion forum so that discussion continues when illness prevents class attendance.
• Upload  course content: lecture notes, PowerPoints, etc for student self directed learning
• Create an alternative lecture experience in Word, PowerPoint, or other tool and upload as above.
• Have a virtual class using Adobe Connect (reservations required, 5 class limit, 100 student/class limit)
• Contact a faculty instructional technology consultant to help you with other ideas or for help with any of the above (651-638-6500#3)

Blackboard 8 Tutorials - NEW!

• Bethel Blackboard 8 Grade Center Overview
• Bethel Blackboard 8 Weighting Grades
• Learning Objects - Wikis, Blogs, Portfolios

Known Blackboard Issues

• Naming Files for Uploading/Attaching in Blackboard

• Internet Explorer 8 - Use ONLY in compatibility mode for Blackboard and should work for most functions.

  • Issue:  a TIMING BOX does not allow submitting quizzes and tests. Solution: use compatibility mode or Firefox
  • If you have problems, please use Firefox 3,  or Internet Explorer 6 or 7.
  • Firefox Free Download:  http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ 

• Safari 4 and Google Chrome - Do not upload Assignments

  • When submitting an Assignment with a file attached, an error will appear asking to "Please enter a valid file."   The problem only occurs in Safari 4 and Google Chrome for Windows.  Macs are unaffected.

• If you have the Vista operating system, the textbox editor in Blackboard does not work properly. 

  • There are compatibility issues with Vista & IE7. Currently the only workaround is to download and use a different browser such as Firefox (latest version).

• Problems Posting to the Discussion board:

  • File names for attachments in Blackboard should be entirely alphanumeric and short. (example: assignment1.doc) (see above)
  • On entering a Discussion Forum the Discussion hangs on "Loading Thread".
    Description of the problem and potential solutions
  • Discussions use Javascript to submit. Make sure that your Java is updated..
  • • Try First:  Clear your Java Cache
    • Try Second: Download an alternative browser (Mozilla Firefox 3 or Safari 3) and see if that solves your problem.http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/http://www.apple.com/safari/download/
    • Try Last:  Reinstall Java http://www.java.com/en/  (more help on Java)

HISTORY

The link above leads to information on the history of our blackboard learning management system along with statistics about usage.

Best Browser for Blackboard

Supported Browser list for Blackboard 8

Mozilla Firefox  is currently the  most compatible Blackboard Browser.