WebCT Good News/Bad News #1: Assessments & Media Library

By the end of next week, we’ll know whether JCCC will upgrade to Blackboard Learning System CE 6.1.1 (e.g. the new name for WebCT) over the Holiday Break. The decision to proceed or not will be based on:

• Feedback from faculty and staff CE 6.1.1 testers
• Comments we receive over the next few days from the JCCC WebCT users list,
• Feedback from the Distance Learning Coordinating Council, and
• Input from two campus-wide committees: the Academic Technology Advisory Council (ATAC) that meets on Monday, December 4, 2006 and the Academic Information Management (AIM) Committee that meets on Friday, December 1, 2006.

This is a first of the daily “Good News/Bad News” messages I'll post to inform JCCC faculty of what works and what doesn’t in CE 6.1.1. Even though JCCC faculty may not have time to test, the daily posting will indicate what the upgrade will “do to your course.” If you have comments, you’re invited to email me directly (jbacon@jccc.edu) or share on the dlfaculty@jccc.edu list.

CE 6.1.1 Good News -- Assessments

1. The Assessments screen as viewed by students now lists start and due dates for all assessments (tests and quizzes).
2. The Item Statistics report for students in the lower 25% of a class now calculates correctly.
3. Performance reports can be generated even when an assessment has submissions that are not yet graded.
4. Calculated questions that do not require units of measure are graded correctly.
5. Courses imported from Campus Edition 4.1 to CE6 now properly display images referenced by inserting the HTML image tag in the General Feedback field.

CE 6.1.1 Bad News – Media Library

1. If you import Media Library collections that include JPEG images or you add JPEG images after a course is imported or copied, the Media Library tool becomes broken; e.g. after you select the View All Media Library entries option, existing and new entries cannot be viewed, deleted or edited by the designer/instructor and students cannot view the entries. We’re working with Blackboard support to get this fixed or find a work-around.