A
proud member of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.
A
proud member of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.Blackboard Glossary for Faculty
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Adaptive Release
This feature is accessed by clicking “manage” located to the right of any course content item allowing the instructor to control the visibility of content to users.
Address Book
The Address Book may be used by students and faculty to store contact information.
Advanced Group Management
The Advanced Group Management feature provides a streamlined method to manage groups of students in your courses. As an alternative to Blackboard’s Manage Groups function, Advanced Group Management is an all-in-one location where you can create/remove groups, add/remove group members, and configure group functions, such as a group discussion board and file exchange.
Announcements
Announcements allow the posting of timely information in a course. The instructor can add, modify, and remove announcements from the Announcements page. This is an ideal place to post a welcome or getting started message and time-sensitive material such as: when assignments are due, changes in the syllabus, corrections/clarifications of materials, and exam schedules.
Assignment Feature
Faculty may create Assignments using the Blackboard Assignment feature in the Select box in Control Panel and post them for students to complete. Faculty may attach separate files and students may send additional files to the instructor with the completed Assignment. Faculty view and grade Assignments, once they are submitted, from within the Gradebook.
Asynchronous
This term, meaning ‘not at the same time’, refers to methods of communication such as e-mail, voice-mail, and discussion boards, that do not rely on the sender and recipient being online at the same time.
Blackboard
Blackboard is a learning management system. Blackboard courses are accessed using a web browser.
Browser
A browser is a software program that enables a user to access hypertext files from any computer connected to the Internet. Commonly-used browsers include Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Opera, AOL, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari. Blackboard recommends using Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher for best results in accessing course materials.
Cal U Library Tab
This Blackboard tab contains a link to commonly needed library information.
Calendar
Instructors can add items to the calendar as due dates, exam dates, or other events to be viewed by students.
Chat
Chat can be used for real-time (synchronous), online classroom discussions and question/answer forums. Chat is a text-based tool that is optimized for low bandwidth applications. It allows a group of users to conduct an online session through text based messages.
Collaboration
Virtual Classroom and Chat are now managed and accessed under collaboration.
Community Tab
The Community tab lists Organizations specific to each user and the Organization Catalog for the institution. Users click on the organization name in the Community tab to access an organization.
Content Area
Faculty use the Content Areas to present information in many formats, from basic text to multimedia. Faculty can add course materials to the Content Areas from the Control Panel.
Control Panel
The Control Panel gives access to the various features and tools available within Blackboard for course design and maintenance. All course administration is done through the Control Panel. It is accessed via a choice on the left course menu area. It is only visible to users with the role of Instructor, Teaching Assistant, Grader, or System Administrator.
Course Cartridge
Course Cartridges provide a way for instructors to supplement their Blackboard courses with materials developed by academic publishers. Using a Course Cartridge allows you to import publishers’ content directly into a Blackboard course. A course cartridge download key must be obtained from the publisher to import the course cartridge materials.
Course Link
A Course Link is a shortcut between one area in your Blackboard course and another. For example, a Course Link in the Course Documents area can link to a Discussion Board Forum.
Course Menu
A course menu is displayed on the left side for each course. It provides access to course materials and a way to navigate through the course.
Course Statistics
Instructors can use the Course Statistics area to generate reports on course usage and activity. Available reports include: Overall Summary of Usage, Accesses by Content Area, Accesses by Forum, and Accesses by Group.
Courses Tab
This page shows all the courses you are enrolled in. Clicking on one of these courses will take you to that course page.
Criteria
The Criteria applied to an Adaptive Release rule narrows the availability of the item it is applied to. Multiple Adaptive Release rules with numerous criteria may be created or modified using Adaptive Release: Advanced.
Detail View
This view of the course navigation menu displays the folder structure of all course content. It allows the user to navigate to a particular location in the course.
Digital Drop Box
The Digital Drop Box is used to exchange files between a student and an instructor. A user’s Digital Drop Box cannot be accessed by any other user. Instructors cannot access student’s drop boxes but students can send files from their drop box to the instructor’s drop box.
Discussion Board
Discussion Boards are asynchronous text discussion areas where faculty and students can exchange ideas on a topic, post requests for assistance or conduct informal conversation.
Discussion Forum
Discussion Forums facilitate class discussion by enabling users to discuss a topic outside of normal class hours. Online discussions may contain one or more discussion threads.
Discussion Grader
The Discussion Grader is a feature in Blackboard that simplifies the process of evaluating and grading a student’s participation in discussion board forums. The Discussion Grader indentifies number of posts, number of replies, and word count for each and allows an association to a grade book item.
Discussion Thread
This is a series of posts and replies to a specific topic being discussed.
Document Package
The Document Package feature allows you to upload a compressed (zipped) folder of documents from your hard drive to a content area in Blackboard, all at once. The folder structure will be maintained and automatically created in the Blackboard content area.
Glossary
The Blackboard Course Glossary allows faculty to add term and definition lists to a Blackboard course shell. Terms in a Glossary can be created directly in the Glossary Manager or uploaded into the Glossary Manager from a tab-delimited or CSV file.
Gradebook
An area in Blackboard where instructors can post a record of items to be graded and grades to date for students. Bb tests and Assignments (created with the Bb Assignment feature) automatically get a column created in Gradebook. Other items can be manually added to Gradebook.
Gradebook Views
Grade book Views allows the instructor to choose between "View Grades by User" or "View Grades by Item."
Guests
Users with the role of Guest have no access to the Control Panel. Areas within the course can be made available to Guests. Visitors such as prospective students, alumni or parents may be given the role of Guest.
Help
The Help Button directs you to the Blackboard Online Support Center, where you can get additional information about how to use Blackboard, as well as chat assistance and support.
Home Button
The home button takes you to Cal U’s home web page.
HTML
HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language, the common language used for web pages.
Instructor
Instructors have access to all areas in the Control Panel. This role is generally given to those developing, teaching or facilitating a class. Instructors may still access a course that is unavailable to Students.
Java
A programming language specifically designed for writing programs that can be used in the environment of the internet.
Learning Management System (LMS)
The LMS provides a way to create and deliver content, monitor participation, communicate with and assess participants. Teaching and learning can take place synchronously and asynchronously.
Learning Unit
A learning unit provides a specific content format for display of course materials. It enables the Instructor to require sequential completion of materials.
Link Checker
Link Checker indicates which external links in your course work and which ones do not in one glance. You can quickly hide dead links from students until you remove or correct the link. Link Checker makes it easy to review all external links in a Blackboard course prior to the start of a semester.
List/Modify Users
The List/Modify Users page enables instructors to view and modify properties for students enrolled in Blackboard, as changing a user’s role within a course.
Login
Login is used to establish a connection to a computer or online service. Users login to Blackboard using their Blackboard username and password.
Logout
Logout allows you to close the connection to a computer or online service after using it. To log out of a Blackboard session, click on the Logout button at the top of the screen. The log out process removes your login information from the Blackboard system and is highly recommended when ending a Blackboard session.
Manage Groups
The Manage Groups feature allows instructors to create Groups within courses. Instructors can also add, remove, and modify groups from this page. The Instructor has the option of giving the group access to private: Discussion Board, Virtual Classroom, Group File Exchange, and Group Email.
Message
Blackboard Messaging allows you to send, store, and retrieve internal messages to another user in a course via Blackboard. These messages are not associated with your university email account and can only be sent to other users in your Blackboard course.
Module
Blackboard modules are information boxes appearing in the Blackboard portal after login to Blackboard. For example, in the My Institution Tab, Course Catalog and My Courses are modules.
My Grades
This gives students access to their grades, provided the instructor uses Blackboard grade book and has made grade columns in the Grade book available. Students do not see the grades of other students.
My Institution
The My Institution tab contains tools and information specific to each user’s preferences. Tools and information are contained in modules. Users can add and remove modules from their My Institution tab. The System Administrator may restrict access to or require specific modules.
Netiquette
People utilizing the internet should follow proper protocols and have good online “manners” generally known as netiquette, or etiquette on the Net. Visit www.albion.com/netiquette for information on rules for online behavior.
Performance Dashboard
The Performance Dashboard tool provides a window into user activity in a course or organization. All users enrolled in the course are listed, with pertinent information about the user’s progress and activity in the course. The Performance Dashboard is accessed through the Control Panel.
Personal Information
The Personal Information area is used to change your Blackboard password and set the visual text box editor options (set to unavailable if using the Vista operating system).
Plain Text
Plain text is an option available in test boxes when the virtual text box editor is set to unavailable. Text will appear just as it is entered. Links are not created automatically, and HTML tags are not recognized and rendered.
Pool Manager
The Pool Manager allows Instructors to store and organize questions for repeated use. Instructors can create new questions to include in Pools or add questions that have been created in other tests or pools. With the exception of minor text changes, such as correcting a typo, a pool should not be modified if students have already begun taking an assessment that draws questions from the pool.
Quick View
This view of the course navigation menu is the traditional button or text view.
Review Status
The Review Status tool allows the instructor to track user review of specific content items. Once the Instructor enables the tool for an item, each student tracks their progress. A Mark Reviewed button appears on the item when the user opens the Content Area. After reviewing the item, the student selects this button to mark it reviewed. The Instructor may check the status of student reviews in the Performance Dashboard.
Rule
A rule is a set of criteria that determines the visibility of the content item to users. If multiple rules are created, the content will be visible to the user if any or all the rules are met, depending on how the rules are applied.Send E-mail
Send Email enables users to send email to all or select Students, Instructors, Teaching Assistants, Groups, or other participants within a course. Users can create a message and attach a file. Senders receive a copy of the email sent.
Staff Information
Staff Information is a section of a Blackboard course that gives the instructor a place to post office hours, office location, phone number, e-mail address, addition pertinent information, and a photo.
Student Orientation Tab
This tab allows students to participate in Cal U’s Student Blackboard Orientation.
Support Services Tab
The Support Services tab contains information on the Blackboard support, Cal U computer support, and links to the student services available at Cal U.
Survey Manager
This allows the creation of surveys that can be included in an instructor’s Blackboard course.
Synchronous
Synchronous communication allows “real time” communication among users who are logged in at the same time.
Tasks
Blackboard instructors can set Tasks for students within a Blackboard course. Users (instructors, students and other participants) may also add Tasks to Blackboard which are viewable only by the individual user.Test Manager
The Test Manager is used to create, modify, and remove tests.
Users/User Roles
A Blackboard user is anyone using Blackboard, whether he/she is teaching staff, or students. Blackboard defines users as the following:
· Instructor: The Instructor role has the highest level of privilege within a course. Typically, the Instructor is the person developing, teaching or facilitating the course.
· Teaching Assistant: Teaching assistants are enrolled into the course with a combination of development responsibilities. This includes the ability to develop test questions, verify grades, manage users, and many others. The role of a Teaching Assistant is assigned by the course instructor.
· Grader: The grader access only permits access to the grade book. The role of a grader is assigned by the course instructor.
· Course Builder: Course builders have access to all course functions except the grade book. The role of a course builder is assigned by the course instructor.
· Student: Enrolled students have access to all areas in the course that contain content and assessments.
· Guest: Guests may enter the course and browse all components.
Virtual Classroom
The Virtual Classroom (available under Collaboration) provides an opportunity for synchronous communication. The Virtual Classroom includes facilitation of small breakouts, discussions, whiteboard functions, chat, a course map, and a question area.
Visual Text Box Editor
The Visual Text Box Editor allows users to modify content in an interface resembling a word processor, and perform basic HTML functions without knowledge of any HTML.
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