Faculty teaching summer courses this year will be the first on campus to use Blackboard 8.0's new features and enhancements. Upgraded in mid-May, the university's course management software now offers a fully redesigned Grade Center, and a new Self and Peer Assessment tool along with the recently added plagiarism prevention tool.
New Features and Functions
New features and functions in Blackboard 8.0 are a direct result of faculty feedback and requests. With the upgrade, faculty now have greater control over how they manage their courses online and new means to engage student participation and collaboration. Here is a preview of how these enhancements can help manage course grades and encourage critical thinking within the classroom and across the university.
Grade Center
I am so thrilled with the new Grade Center. It is fantastic and solves a lot of my problems.” - Dr. Jennifer Moon, School of Biological Sciences
The entirely new Grade Center offers a number of improvements over the old gradebook. Carolyn Thomas, Blackboard Academic Program Manager, DIIA, says "Our faculty will be excited by the often-requested abilities to drop the lowest grades, upload the entire spreadsheet, and see their students’ names throughout the Grade Center.”
One of the most significant changes is that faculty can now customize Grade Center; this means common tasks will require fewer clicks. Other useful features include:
- In-cell editing
- New weighting formulas that allow dropping of the lowest grade(s)
- Full spreadsheet format download and simple upload of grades
- Always visible student names and column headings
- A grade history sheet, to track when grades are updated and changed
- The ability to add comments of any length, send e-mail from within Grade Center, handle exemptions from the central navigation page and create "Smartviews" based on personal preferences.
Self and Peer Assessment
The new Self and Peer Assessment tools can provide a means for students to develop their own critical thinking skills as well as read and review faculty and peer comments and feedback.
With the self assessment tool, faculty establish criteria that students then use to review and grade their own assessments. With the peer evaluation tool, students also follow specific criteria to review work submitted by other students, compare responses and offer positive and constructive feedback.
SafeAssign™ Plagiarism Prevention Service
SafeAssign™ is a tool faculty can use to ensure the originality of the work students submit and to educate students about plagiarism. SafeAssign checks student's submissions for unoriginal or copied content by comparing papers and assignments against the Internet and an industry-leading collection of databases. SafeAssign also provides features that faculty can use to stress the importance of attributing content to its original source.
Learn More
The Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment (DIIA) will schedule Grade Center workshops throughout the summer. Registration and dates are available through the DIIA Web site. Online information and tutorials are available through the Blackboard Support Wiki.
For a one-on-one consultation about the upgraded Blackboard 8.0, contact the university's Blackboard Support Staff. You can also contact the ITS Faculty Help Line at 472-9200 or submit a request to the ITS Help Desk.
