Friday, October 24, 2014

Columns are missing in the Grade Center and/or you Can't Scroll

If you created a column in the Grade Center of Blackboard, and can't find it, it may be hiding because of your browser zoom settings or your MacOS scrollbar settings.
Try these methods to fix it:

1.  If you're using a Mac, Make sure your Mac preferences are set to display the scroll bars as follows:


a.    Launch System Preferences, either from the Dock or from the Apple menu. b.    Once the System Preferences window opens, select the General preference pane. c.    The middle section of the General preference pane controls when scroll bars appear and a few additional scroll bar options. d.    Select "Always" from the Show Scroll Bars options.


Once your scroll bars are back, use the horizontal scroll to scroll to the right in the Grade Center to find your missing columns.


2.  If you are using Google Chrome, make sure your view zoom is set to 100%Blackboard has a bug where it doesn't display the rightmost column in the Grade Center in Chrome if your zoom is set to anything other than 100%.



3.  The column you're looking for may be hidden.  You can unhide hidden columns by going to the Manage > Column Organization option here:  http://screencast.com/t/MxsDz8vbPL .  Unhide the columns by selecting them and choosing the "unhide selected columns" option at the bottom.


We hope this information is helpful.





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Thursday, October 23, 2014

How to Sync your Blackboard Calendar to your Outlook Web Mail / Office365 Calendar

You can subscribe to your Blackboard calendar from within Office 365 / Outlook Web Mail.  Below is a video that shows how.  Scroll down for written instructions.

Once you subscribe to your Blackboard calendar from within Outlook, new events in Blackboard will automatically sync to Outlook within an hour or so of being added to your Blackboard courses.

Link to video: http://goo.gl/1spKgx
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Instructions:

1.  Go to Blackboard, click the "Home" tab, then click "Calendar"
2.  Use the "Get External Calendar Link" button and copy the link to the clipboard
3.  Go to Office365 at outlook.office365.com.  Log in and click the "Calendar" option.
4.  Right-click the "Other Calendars" link and select "Open Calendar".
5.  Paste the link from Blackboard into the Internet Calendar box and click "Open"

Your Blackboard calendar will be automatically synced to Outlook/Office365 going forward.


How to Sync your Blackboard Calendar to your Google Calendar

You can subscribe to your Blackboard calendar from within Google Calendar.  Below is a video that shows how.  Scroll down for written instructions.

Once you subscribe to your Blackboard calendar from within Google, new events in Blackboard will automatically sync to Google Calendar within an hour or so of being added to your Blackboard courses.

Link to video: http://goo.gl/IMtNLm
Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.


Instructions:

1.  Go to Blackboard, click the "Home" tab, then click "Calendar"
2.  Use the "Get External Calendar Link" button and copy the link to the clipboard
3.  Go to Google Calendar at calendar.google.com
4.  Next to "Other Calendars", click the dropdown and select "Add by URL"
5.  Paste the link from Blackboard into the URL box and click "Add Calendar"

Your Blackboard calendar will be automatically synced to Google going forward.





How to Post a Link to a Google Spreadsheet into your Blackboard Course

Google Sheets can be used to allow students in a Blackboard course to edit a spreadsheet collaboratively.

Here's a video showing how to create and post the link in Blackboard:

Link to video: http://goo.gl/EHiW7S
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