Tip of the Week!
Reminder that Fall 201520 courses end next Saturday, December 19th. Below is helpful information to remember when grading.
Remember to always enter 0's for all those assignments for which your students did not earn any points.
This becomes particularly important at the end of the semester. Due to a
glitch in the grade center in Blackboard, assignments may become
invisible to the students if 0's are not entered where appropriate thus leading students to believe that their score is higher than it really is.
For example:
Quiz 1 was due in Session 2. John Student does not complete Quiz 1 and
Ann Instructor leaves the Quiz 1 score blank. After the due date, the
quiz is made unavailable to students. Because John Student doesn't have a score for Quiz 1, the column disappears from his grade center as it disappears from the Class Session. John's grade center will now look like this:
| John Student |
Grade Center |
Intro Discussion = 10/10
Assignment 1= 10/10
Discussion 2 = 10/10
Quiz 2 = 10/10
Total = 40/40 100% |
Intro Discussion= 10 points
Quiz 1= 10 points
Assignment 1= 10 points
Discussion 2= 10 points
Quiz 2= 10 points
Total= 50 points |
John
now thinks he has a score of 40/40, or 100%. Without an extensive
review of the course calendar and syllabus, John would have no
indication that his score is actually 40/50, or 80%.
If a 0 is entered for Quiz 1 for John Student he would then be able to see the Quiz in the grade center (as shown below). This will give students accurate and complete information with which to calculate their true grade.
| John Student |
Grade Center |
Intro Discussion = 10/10
Quiz 1= 0/10
Assignment 1= 10/10
Discussion 2 = 10/10
Quiz 2 = 10/10
Total = 40/50 80% |
Intro Discussion= 10 points
Quiz 1= 10 points
Assignment 1= 10 points
Discussion 2= 10 points
Quiz 2= 10 points
Total= 50 points |
See the Finalizing Your Course page on the IDC website for more information about finalizing your course!
Systems Information
The Lafayette region has once again ranked second in the state for number of students using the Tutor.com online tutoring service! First was Central Indiana with 1,106 students utilizing the service. Lafayette had 414 students utilize the service in the month of November, in addition to 43 students from Kokomo.
Please continue recommending the service to your students. The service has reported very high usage for Math and English courses. 97% of students report that the service helps them complete their homework assignments and is helping them to improve their grades.
The service can be accessed through Blackboard in the Tutor.com module on the home tab.
Course Loading Reminder
Course loading information from the Center for Instructional Technology (C4IT) regarding Spring 2016 courses:
- Faculty will gain access to these courses on Dec. 14th (the faculty must be loaded into Banner in order to have access)
- On Dec. 14th a global announcement will be posted in all courses regarding students gaining access 72 hours before classes start- faculty will not be able to delete this announcement but it will automatically disappear when courses become available to students
- Student enrollments will be loaded into courses on Dec. 14th, however the course will not become available to students until 72 hours prior to the course start date
- Starting on Dec. 23rd, Banner will sync with Blackboard twice per day
- From Dec. 23rd to the 26th Blackboard will be performing an upgrade and will be unavailable (please note the outage has been extended one day longer than was previously planned)
Please note, there are two different types of course “loading” - instructor
loading and course content loading.
Instructor loading-
Each school inputs instructors into their courses through Banner. Once
the courses become available to instructors through Blackboard, any
instructor who has been assigned to a course through Banner will then be
able to access the course in Blackboard. You will not see spring
courses in Blackboard until after December 14th. If you do not see your
course in Blackboard after December 14th, it is because your school has
not put you into Banner. To remedy this, you must speak to your school.
After you've been added to your course in Banner, allow 36 hours for the
course to appear in Blackboard.
Course content loading- Statewide online course content is loaded by the Center for
Instructional Technology, regional online course content is loaded by your regional Online Technologies
Coordinators. All courses must use the same 16-session formatted
original course as loaded into their live course, 16-week courses
complete one session per week, eight-week courses complete two sessions
per week, etc. Instructors are not permitted to make changes to
assignments or to course layout. You may post clarifying information or
supplemental materials, but graded assignments may not be changed.
Maintenance
- Blackboard maintenance will be taking place beginning on Weds. Dec. 23rd and ending the morning of Dec. 26th. During that time, Blackboard will be offline and unavailable.
