The Control Panel is no longer on a separate page in your course. You can still access all the same functions as you did in previous versions of Bb, only now they will display in a drop down menu when you click the down arrow or 'chevron' to the left of the Control Panel link. Once you have completed your task you can collapse the area by clicking the up chevron. Please view this video for a closer look.click here.

Edit Mode allows Instructors to make changes to content from within the Course view instead of navigating through the Control Panel. The Edit Mode toggles On and Off. The toggle appears in the navigation bar in each Course area and any subfolders. The Edit Mode toggle is displayed to users with a role of Instructor, TA, or Course Builder.

Course Home Page is an exciting new feature. Now your course can open to a ‘dashboard’ that provides students with a snapshot view of the latest course activities. This new area contains drag n’ drop modules that include: Announcements, Alerts, What Due, What’s Past Due, My Tasks, My Calendar, and What’s New.

Bb 9 creates Home Pages by default when a new course is created. However, if your course or courses were brought over from Bb 8 they will not contain a Home Page. To view our How to Create a Course Home Page video click here.

To view our How to Create a Course Home Page video click here.

Managing your Course Menu is much easier than in past versions of Bb. When in Edit Mode note the plus icon on the top left portion of your Course Menu. When you mouse over the icon a menu will appear that will allow you to perform familiar tasks like creating a Content Area or External Link. Also, you can now easily create dividers and subheader’s to assist in course navigation.

Menu in a Window is a great new feature that allows a student or instructor to open a small window containing the Course Menu. This in turn allows the user to collapse the Course Menu area providing more room to view and work with course content. See the next question for more details.

At the very top of the Course Menu (with Edit Mode off) you will see four icons. The third icon from the left will allow you to ‘Display Course Menu in a Window’. Select this function and when the window appears select Hide Course Menu tab, once selected it will collapse the Course Menu.

You will find the Hide Course Menu tab in the upper-middle, left hand edge of your content area, between the Course Menu and the content area.

A delayed date can be set to display the announcement but if emailing the announcement is selected, the email will get sent immediately.

In Bb 9 Digital Drop Box, The Electric Blackboard and Student Homepages have been removed in Bb 9. To replace the dropbox we recommend you use the Assignment function or Messages.

There is no longer a List / Modify Users function in the Control Panel. If you want to see a list of all students they will need to use the User link under Users and Groups. You can List All Users by entering the wild card character % in the Search box and clicking Go. This is also the same area you would change student Properties e.g. Teaching Assistant or Course Builder.

In Bb 9 the Download Upload Grade Center function as been moved from the Manage menu to Work Offline.

Blackboard is relatively easy to use. However, here is a list of information that will get you off to a good start: Things You Should Know

In order to have a course created on Blackboard you must have your campuses Bb support staff ‘flag’ the course you want. To find out who your campus repersenitve is CLICK HERE.

You can make your course available to students by going into the Control Panels Customization area and selecting Properties. At step three you will find the Availbiltiy switch.

When using the Grade Center, the horizontal or vertical scrollbars may not appear on Windows workstations. This problem occurs because:

A. The scrollbar size is set to high
B. The screen resolution is to low
C. System font size set to large (Firefox only)

It could be that you have inadvertently hidden them from your view. To check that go to the Grade Center Action Bar and select Organize Grade Center from the Manage drop down menu. When it opens your will note the hidden columns as they have been grayed out.

To unhide a column select the check box to the left and Show Selected Columns from the Show/Hide dropdown menu in the Action Bar.

When you hide a column in the Grade Center you are onlying hiding it from your own view, your students will still see it.

In the Grade Center select the chevrons next to the column name. In that drop down menu select Modify Column, at option three you will need to check the No box for Show this column in My Grades.

The primary difference is surveys allow you to collect group data, and cannot be connected with a specific individual who took the survey. Also there are no points for questions in a survey.

In the past we recommended using the Archive/Import functions to move content from one semester to the next. However, we now recommend using the Course Copy function because any links to content residing in the Content System will be broken using any other method. The Course Copy function can be found in the Control Panel dropdown menu under Packages and Utilities. You can find detailed instructions in this Quick Reference Guide.

This allows you to choose what grade a student sees in the Report Card Module. If this setting is chosen the grade in that column will appear to a student in the Report Card Module.

Once a column has been chosen you cannot get rid of it. All you can do is select another column to be the External Grade column.

ITS does a system wide backup on a daily basis. However, these backups are for catastrophic system failure and do not apply at the singular course level. It is the instructor's responsibility to preserve the integrity of their courses and course materials. More Information Here

http://www.maricopa.edu/blackboard/support/employees/FAQ/missing_links.pdf