What We Know about Blackboard (WebCT) CE 6.1

(updated 8/15/2006)

JCCC Ed Tech Center staff members have tested Campus Edition (CE) 6.1 which is the current version of Campus Edition (formerly WebCT CE) after the installation of Service Pack 3 (SP3) & the Application Pack (AP). We have not tested SP3 without the concurrent install of the AP, so we cannot verify which fixes occur in which upgrade. The following is our best understanding of new features, fixes and remaining problem issues.

Items in red are still problematic, black are fixed items and blue require additional testing on JCCC’s part to verify the behavior or problem.

Notes are listed alphabetically by CE 6.1 tool so you can quickly explore these notes to determine the status of a specific tool.

Announcements

1. You can now change pages when viewing lists of announcements that span multiple pages


2. Images in announcements now seem to correctly display


3. The Delete button now correctly deletes Announcements, but you can only delete announcements you’ve created, e.g. if other faculty have created announcements in a co-taught course, one instructor cannot delete announcements posted by another instructor. Further the warning message refers to one announcement no matter how many you have selected to delete.

Assessments

1. Calculated questions with a large number as the maximum value are now graded correctly


2. There are still problems with embedded images being properly imported from 6.0 or from CE 4.1.


3. If the orientation of questions being imported is not set (in CE 4.1) the default setting in CE 6.1 is horizontal, not vertical.


4. Assessments screen now lists start and due dates for students.


5. The Item Statistics report for students in lower 25% of class is now calculated correctly.


6. Performance reports can be generated even when an assessment has ungraded submissions.


7. Students can submit assessments after the time allowed has expired (but they’re not marked as past the time limit). Of course, if the properties setting to ‘Disallow answer submission if time has expired’ is not checked they can be submitted. However, it appears that even when that is checked assessments are still accepted because they get a grade in the grade book and I find no notice to the instructor, other than the time spent on the assessment, that too much time was taken. E.g. The student can submit, the time taken is displayed but there is no warning as was the case in CE 4.1 that the assignment was submitted late.


8. When editing question sets, reordering questions no longer changes number of questions specified in the Select field.


9. Layout of multiple choice questions with horizontal answer setting is slightly improved (more spacing).


10. Use of HTML option persists when editing questions, e.g. doesn’t have to be reset each time.


11. Calculated questions not requiring units of measure are graded correctly.


12. Jumbled questions generated by Respondus now import and grade correctly.


13. The end date as well as the start date for assessments is now displayed for students.


14. The histogram for statistics now displays all scores.


15. Courses imported from Campus Edition 4.1 to CE6 now properly display images referenced by inserting the <img src=> tag in the General Feedback field.


16. Proctor password can now include # sign and special characters except for the plus (+) sign.


17. Assessments with embedded images in the question, feedback or answer text boxes do not copy from CE6 to CE6 but there is a work-around for the issue.

Assignments

1. On the Teach tab, can generate printable view of assignment submissions.


2. When Assignments are deleted the corresponding columns remain in the (Instructor) Grade Book as well as the student’s My Grades tool.


3. When adding comments, a system exception sometimes occurs when over 1301 characters are entered.


4. When attempting to view submissions from an assignment and selecting the View All tab no longer generates an error message.


5. From the Assignments tool on the Teach tab, if you use the ActionLinks for a specific assignment (View Submissions option) the results now default to showing all submissions for that specific assignment.


6. The tab you last selected in the Assignment Dropbox (Submitted, Not Submitted, and so on) is the default tab when you next access the Assignment Dropbox in the current or another course.


7. When you select a specific assignment you will see the results for the selected assignment relevant to the active tab. There is no longer a switch to the All tab or away from the tab you had active before selecting a specific assignment.


8. From the Assignments tool (Teach tab) if you select the ActionLinks and then select the View Submissions option, the default is for the All tab to be selected.


9. When you switch from the Assignment tool to the Assignment Dropbox the same view (tab) is selected, e.g. if you were viewing the Graded tab of an assignment with the Assignment Tool you will see the Graded tab view of the same assignment when you switch to the Assignment Dropbox.


10. If you use the ActionLinks icon that follows a specific assignment to View Submissions, you’ll see only the submissions for the selected assignment. However, as soon as you select the Published tab and then select the All tab, the view switches from the original specified assignment to an indeterminable blend of multiple assignments on its own; despite any desire you may have to the contrary.


11. The Submitted tab shows Missed assignments while the Not Submitted tab doesn’t?


12. Assignments for groups of students created using Add Content Link from a folder are now added to the folder.


13. Error generated when cutoff date is left blank no longer occurs because the setting can no longer be left blank.


14. Assignment grades for individual students now appear the same in both Grade Book and Assignment Drop Box.


15. If grade is edited in Grade Book, it updates Assignment Drop Box.


16. Sort order now sticks properly when grading assignments, but clicking on the table headers doesn’t seem to reorder the sort order.


17. Student view of Assignments now includes end date of assessment.


18. Instructor can now download multiple assignments at one time by creating a printable view, saving the file (stored in the Content Manager), and then copying or moving the file from the Content Manager to your computer. It creates a zip file that includes the attachments.


19. If you have attached a file to an assignment in the Assignment tool and need to replace it, the replacement file shows correctly on the Build tab but the older (replaced) file still persists in the Student View.

Browser Issues

1. The Check Browser link now returns Safari 2.0.3 and 2.0.4 as supported browsers.


2. User no longer prompted to enable Java applets, such as Chat and the Equation Editor, before using them.

Calendar Tool

1. If an assessment start time is set to 12:00 a.m. in the Create a corresponding event in the Calendar setting, the event now appears in the Calendar.

Chat Tool

1. Students signing on using MyJCCC (Pipeline/Luminus) can now access the Chat tool.


2. Chat Hand Raise mode can now be invoked by Section Instructors, Section Designers and Teaching Assistants.


3. The Whiteboard Select and Move features have been improved,

Class Blogs

1. Instructor can chose to not use the new Class Blog feature. The blog tool is a subset of the Discussions tool and won’t appear unless the Instructor creates a Topic that is a Blog.

Discussions Tool

1. The search of discussion postings still has lag time while materials are indexed.


2. A topic can be locked and the instructor or TA can still post to the topic.


3. Safari 2.0.3 users can get/attach files in Discussions tool using the My Computer applet.


4. After message threads are moved or copied, breadcrumbs now appear correctly appear.


5. After editing and reposting a message with equations, the equations now display properly rather than displaying the equation’s properties.


6. When grading topics, grades can no longer be assigned to unenrolled students unless a grade was assigned before the unenrollment, in which case the grade can be edited.


7. Messages will now sort by Subject properly.


8. Discussion postings in Unthreaded or All order now sort properly.

Equation Editor

1. In the WebEQ Equation Editor, the Save button now functions properly for Safari users.

File Manager

1. You can now upload a file and overwrite an existing file with the same filename.


2. Users who are section designers/section instructors will now be able to re-expand the course menu after it collapses automatically when File manager is clicked.

Folders

1. Icon alignment changes made in folders will now show correctly on the Build tab.

Grade Book

1. Using the View All tab, you can reorder columns and visibility for both instructor and the Student View


2. If two or more enrolled members have the same last name, their first names are now sorted properly, e.g. sorted first by last name, second by first name and third by Student ID.


3. Names with international characters should display properly.


4. When using Firefox, long column titles are truncated if titles are longer than 30 characters (both IE and Firefox ).


5. The Histogram in column statistics now displays all grade ranges.


6. Grade Book data exported to Excel Workbook format now includes User IDs in the .xls file.


7. Default sort order (alphabetic) in Grade Book is now correct.

HTML Creator

1. International Characters entered in HTML Creator will no longer be converted to HTML entities but will be correctly saved as UTF-8 data.


2. Images inserted in document using HTML Creator appear/display in HTML Creator window?

Import and Copy Functions

1. When importing a course from CE 4.1 to CE 6 the "Do not have permission to copy or move" error message no longer is displayed.


2. Import from CE 4.1 works for users who are concurrently Auditors (in one or more course) as well as Section Designers/Section Instructors.


3. Can copy WebCT 6 to 6 course content. Sporadic problems experienced but may have been related to corrupt course shells.

Journals

1. Journals can be enabled or disable by instructor. The journals tool is a subset of Discussions. It won’t appear unless the Instructor creates a Topic that is a Journal.

Learning Modules

1. When using Firefox, students can add notes to learning modules. When enabled the feature does not show up in any view when looking at a Learning Module.


2. Breadcrumbs now reflect learning module title.


3. When Learning Module is configured to display table of contents as first page of module, clicking the learning module’s title in breadcrumbs now correctly returns user to TOC. May not work with Safari.


4. When adding a heading, the heading is no longer automatically duplicated.

Mail Tool

1. Clicking on Unread button shows the correct messages, but the button doesn’t look like it has been pressed. The All button remains depressed, so the only way to get back to All messages is to press the Refresh button.


2. Move, Copy and Delete functions in Mail tool, leave the user in the same folder instead of bouncing back to top level folder (Inbox).


3. Rearranged columns are now reflected in Column Settings for the Grade Book, if the View All tab is used.


4. When the Select Message Recipients screen contains multiple pages of members, the sender’s selections will now persist when the sender navigates to a different page.


5. Replies in Mail tool (using HTML Creator) no longer include extra blank line spaces.

Media Library

1. When you delete a Glossary entry, the hyperlinks disappear, but you must delete the link not just from the Glossary but from the entire Media Library.


2. You can change the default settings under Manage Media Library Links from initial to all to manual.


3. The Student Contributions feature can be disabled or hidden by the instructor. May need to be enabled through Admin settings. From the Help file: “Depending on administrator settings, you may also be able to set Student permissions to create entries for the collection. If you remove these permissions after Students have created content, the content remains, but further Student entries are not allowed.”


4. Media Library collections with over 1000 objects sporadically do not import correctly from CE 4.1 to CE6. This may be related to the size of the export file (often with several unnecessary backups included)

Multimedia

1. PDF files can now be embedded and viewed in CE 6.x.

My WebCT Page

1. When selecting the unread Mail messages or unread Discussions or unread Calendar entries icon on the My WebCT page, the screen no longer (sporadically) displays the student tools instead of the instructor/designer tools.

Peer Review

1. The Peer Review features in the Discussions tool be enabled or disabled in the Edit Properties dialogue for a Topic.

Search tool

1. Search results still return hidden and/or unavailable content (based on Release Criteria).


2. Auditors can now search Assignments with the Search tool.

Tracking

1. Total times reported in the Student Tracking Report and Individual Student Tracking Reports should now match. However, we found that the date range is not sticky and sporadically received a “tracking data has not yet been generated error.” Sporadically found total user sessions not accurate (e.g. “SummaryOfActivityReport_webcetera.csv” and “SummaryOfActivityReport_webceterastudent.csv” -- the files created when exporting the Student versus Individual activity report show different figures for Total User Sessions).

WebLinks Tool

1. Can create, delete and move categories in the Weblinks tool.


2. The Student Contributions feature can be disabled or hidden (on a course by course basis) by the instructor.


3. There is no button for students to create a web link, even when the feature is supposedly enabled.

Who’s Online

1. A course is visible in the Global Who's Online only if the tool has been enabled for the particular section of the course.

Other

1. The Course list and Who's Online fields are now sorted alphabetically.


2. In the Learning Modules, Discussions and in other tools with paging options, the page setting (# of items to be shown) can now be set and “sticks” without changing each time the user goes back to the page.


3. Instructor/Student names are editable for display in Grade Book, Mail and course-wide using the My Profile (or My Tools) tool. However, there is some lag in the display changing after it’s been edited.


4. Based on release notes, the Course Tools menu bar should not collapse to just icons when opening the Mail tool or Learning Modules tool, but that’s not the case. The menu collapses when using the Mail, My Files, Grade Book, and File Manager tools.


5. Files with commas in their filenames can now be added to Course Content.


6. All students dropped or withdrawn from course(s) in Banner, have status set to unenrolled rather than access denied.


7. Whenever courses are listed throughout WebCT (Calendar, imports, and so on) they should by default appear in alphabetical order. However, the course list for the Calendar is not alphabetical. Other non-alphabetical listings include the course list in Respondus, StudyMate and when choosing a course from which to copy content.