Resources
Instructional Technology Spotlight – Finalizing Grades in Brightspace
Nov. 27, 2023—This time of year, many people on campus are counting down the days to the end of the semester. Before we get to that end point, however, there are plenty of things instructors have to do. One of the most popular topics of questions we get this time of year is about how grades and...
Summary of Recent Quiz Timing Changes
Sep. 18, 2023—Over the last few months, Brightspace has updated and expanded options that impact timing for quizzes. While we have outlined each of these in our regular release notes, we wanted to also have a summary post to show all the changes made to quiz timing settings and how they work. If you have any questions...
Turnitin’s New AI Writing Detection (and what it means for your teaching)
Apr. 4, 2023—Effective August 16, 2023, Vanderbilt has disabled Turnitin’s AI detection tool. To read more about why this decision was made, refer to this newer blog post. Beginning on 4/4/2023, faculty who use Turnitin now have access to an additional tool – Artificial Intelligence (AI) Writing Detection. There is no denying that artificial intelligence has...
Introducing the Annotation Tool
Jun. 18, 2019—Up until now, documents in Brightspace could only be annotated by utilizing the GradeMark function of the TurnItIn tool. Brightspace has now rolled out a new optional annotation tool that is built directly into the Assignment tool. For an overview of the tool and how it can be utilized, refer to our new Annotation tool...
Saving Course Materials for Future Use
Apr. 5, 2016—Want to know how to back up your Blackboard courses on your own computer or other device? The Blackboard support team at the CFT has resources that can help. There are two primary ways to back up course content. The first way is to back up a course in its entirety, including the layout and course customization...
Considerations for Effectively Creating Educational Videos
Apr. 4, 2016—With the integration of the Kaltura media tool within Blackboard, users of the CMS now have the ability to easily implement streaming video into their course or organization. If users are attempting to create their own educational videos for use in their course, CFT Assistant Director Cynthia Brame has written a teaching guide that outlines three...
Respondus LockDown Browser now available for Blackboard
Oct. 27, 2015—The Vanderbilt academic community has access to a useful online testing tool for the 2015-2016 academic year. The Respondus LockDown Browser is a custom browser that locks down the testing environment within Blackboard during online quizzes and tests. When students use Respondus LockDown Browser they are unable to print, copy, go to another URL, or access other...
Guide to the Kaltura Streaming Media Tool
Feb. 5, 2015—During the recent migration from OAK to Blackboard managed hosting, we very intentionally maintained the version of Blackboard we were using. This summer, we’ll upgrade to a newer version, but over winter break, our goal was improved performance, not new features. However, we did add one new tool to Blackboard during the migration: Kaltura, a...
New Guide to Course Management Tools
Sep. 29, 2014—by Derek Bruff, Director, Center for Teaching, cross-posted from the CFT blog As Vanderbilt faculty, staff, and students have learned this fall, Vanderbilt’s course management system, OAK (powered by Blackboard), is currently experiencing significant delays. While the OAK team at VUIT continues working to fix these problems, instructors who find OAK’s slow performance to be...