Questions of the Month at the Innovative Learning Support Centre - December 2024

Here are the highlights of faculty questions from December 2024. These are not necessarily the most frequently asked questions, but helpful for all faculty members.

Question: How do I request a course to be merged? How does it work?

Answer:

Complete and submit the form to merge multiple courses into a single site. All requests are subject to approval. Allow up to five business days for processing, because the start of semester is a peak time for support with merging courses.

This is what the process of a merge looks like:

You, the instructor, have been attached to three courses and would like to find a way to manage the courses and content in one main (parent) course. To do this, you can request to merge your courses! These are some example courses you have been assigned to:

CRN 1234 - ABCD-001-0NA
CRN 1235 - ABCD-001-0NB
CRN 1236 - ABCD-001-0NC

In this support request form, you would add the CRN and course codes: CRN 1234 - ABCD-001-0NA, CRN 1235 - ABCD-001-0NB and CRN 1236 - ABCD-001-0NC.

Once the support request is completed you will get a new code (XL) for example: XL12345 or ABCD001 - 202370 - XL12345. When you add content to the parent (XL) site, that content will appear in all three child courses (your three course sections you merged together)!

Question: How can I get added as an Instructor into a course?

Answer:

Instructors are added into Blackboard courses by the Faculty Scheduler in each department. Associate Deans can also request instructors to be added to a course through the scheduler. The scheduler will then be able to add you into these courses through Banner or Destiny 1, so please reach out to them, as they will be able to manage this request. Please note: Only faculty members who are hired on teaching contracts can be instructors in Blackboard, and keep in mind that Innovative Learning cannot add instructors into current courses, but we can add instructors into current courses as 'course builders', if necessary.

Question: How can I complete a course copy?

Answer:

If you are copying an entire course and putting all of it into another course, please follow these steps:

Open the destination course – the course where you want to copy the content.
Click on the three dots in the top-right corner. You will see a menu where you can click on Copy Items to go to the Copy Items Page.

Find the course that needs to be copied from and select the checkbox next to it.
On the right panel, click on “Start Copy” at the bottom. It may take some time to complete the copy process.

Once this is complete, you will see all of the items in your new course!

Please note: When copying a course, be sure to copy the entire course rather than just the content in the course. Copying only the content may result in styling and formatting issues as it may not automatically copy over items referenced by the selected item.

Learn more

Question: How do I update my Blackboard profile?

Answer:

From the navigation menu when you log into Blackboard, select your name. Here, you will be able to:

change your profile picture,

change your pronouns,

and change your global notification settings.

Changing your email, name and other details needs to take place in your MyHumber account. You can learn more about the Blackboard profile settings by watching this YouTube video from Anthology, or by reading over this resource.

Question: How do I setup my Gradebook?

Answer:

Innovative Learning recommends that you setup your Gradebook and your overall grade as soon as possible.

Innovative Learning has created a simulation to help you learn to setup your overall grade. If you prefer the written instructions they are below.

At the bottom of the Gradebook, select Set it up. The overall grade page will open up.
Select Overall Grade Calculation. Please select Weighted.
Read the instructions located at the top of the screen. These instructions describe the function of each symbol within the overall grade calculation.
Please select how gradable items within the category should be distributed. By selecting proportionally, items are distributed based on their total points. For example, an item with 100 points will have twice the weight of an item with 50 points. Equally will ignore the total point and equally distribute weight for each item.
If grading by category, input the correct weights of each category in their respective areas. Categories that are not being used can be exempted (grayed out row with a purple icon on the right as in the Homework category below).
If grading by individual items, unlink them from their associated category. This can be done by selecting the dropdown of the category and selecting the unlink icon next to the item that needs to be separated.
The item should now have a separate place to enter it’s individual weight.

Note: The overall grade allows you to include both category and individual items in the calculation if desired.
Once all the appropriate weights have been entered, there are additional settings to the right of the screen. Here, you can dictate whether you want overall grade calculated based on the total of points earned.
Note: if these settings are not selected, the overall grade calculation will be a non-running total, and students are not able to view it. If you select Percentage, you can show the current running total in percentage.