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Brightspace Selected as Vanderbilt’s New Course Management System
Jan. 9, 2017—The Center for Teaching is glad to announce that Brightspace will be replacing Blackboard as the campus-wide course management system beginning Summer 2017. This transition will bring change for students, faculty, and staff. As Brightspace’s administrative home, we at the Center for Teaching want to reassure you that we are doing all that we can to...
Holiday Hours — Winter Break 2016
Dec. 15, 2016—With the fall 2016 semester winding down, the Blackboard support team at the Center for Teaching has already begun working with many instructors around campus to ready spring courses. If you plan to work on your Blackboard courses over the winter holiday, we will be available to help via email at blackboard@vanderbilt.edu. Please note that...
SIPX: A Blackboard-Integrated Tool for Copyright Compliance in Course Readings
Sep. 16, 2016—You may have heard about SIPX, a tool recently acquired by the Vanderbilt Library to streamline the copyright compliance process for course readings. With the addition of SIPX to the Blackboard tool set, instructors now have the ability to find course readings themselves from the library holdings (or from other sources) and place the links...
Is Blackboard FERPA compliant?
Aug. 18, 2016—Here at Blackboard support, we often get questions from faculty and teaching assistants about Blackboard’s compliance with the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the federal law that governs the privacy of student educational records. The good news is that the guidelines that protect student privacy in your physical classroom work in much the same way...
Blackboard Support Summer Hours
May. 25, 2016—This summer the Blackboard support team will focus their support efforts from 7am to 4pm Monday through Friday. You can expect a fast and thorough response from our team whether you contact us by email or phone during those hours. We will continue providing support via email 4-11pm Sunday through Thursday, with an expected response...
Blackboard Upgrade Underway!
May. 21, 2016—You should have received emails alerting you to Blackboard’s upgrade this weekend, or you may have seen the announcement on the Blackboard log in page. That upgrade period is now underway. We expect Blackboard to be available to users again no later than 8pm on Sunday May 22. Updates about the upgrade status can be...
Sunday, January 31, 2016 1-5am: Blackboard Maintenance
Jan. 28, 2016—Regular Blackboard Maintenance Window: Early Sunday Morning 1:00-5:00 AM Central Time Between 1-5am early Sunday mornings, Blackboard undergoes weekly mmaintenance. Often, Blackboard continues to be available for users during that time, but occasionally a shut-down and restart of the system is required. Users should not plan on scheduling or taking quizzes, assig nments, or using...
Taking our Blackboard Workshops on the Road!
Jan. 15, 2016—Many of you have visited us for Blackboard trainings and drop-in hours here at the CFT. What you may not know is that we have also taken that support model on the road to various schools, centers, and departments across campus. If you work with a group that you think might benefit from a tailored...
Your textbook may integrate with Blackboard
Jan. 8, 2016—Beginning in the spring 2016 semester, Vanderbilt faculty will be able to integrate online textbook materials and grading with Blackboard. If your textbook includes publisher-provided online content, email us at blackboard@vanderbilt.edu or come see us during our drop-in support hours to find out if your textbook is one of the many that have partnered with Blackboard to...
SafeAssign integrated into Blackboard assignments
Nov. 3, 2015—Using SafeAssign is easier than ever now that it is integrated directly into the Blackboard assignments feature. SafeAssign is a tool used to prevent plagiarism and to create opportunities to help students learn to properly attribute sources. How does SafeAssign work? SafeAssign’s proprietary algorithm analyzes submission text and compares the words and terms against multiple...