FAQ's
Class Communications
What’s the Best Way to Send a Communication to My Class?
Why Are Announcements Coming From the Other Instructor in My Course and Not Me?
If I Send Students a Message and They Reply to the Message, Can Other Students See The Student’s Reply?
Content/File Management
My Students Are Trying to Access a File, But Nothing Happens – Why Won’t It Open?
I’m Running into Course Quota Issues, How Can I Fix This?
Why Can’t I See My Course Textbooks or Concourse Syllabus in Student Preview Mode?
Students Report Their Modules Show as “In Progress” Even if Assignments or Readings Have Been Completed. Is There a Way for Them to Mark the Module or Item as Complete?
Why Do I Get the “Oops! Something Went Wrong” Error Message? Why Won’t it Go Away?
My Students Can’t See an Item in the Course (via a Course Link) – Why Not?
What’s the Difference Between Release Conditions and Granting an Exception?
Graded Activities
How Do I Release Content/Graded Activities at a Select Day/Time?
How Do I Configure Tests To Show Students Their Score, Correct Answer, Incorrect Answers and When I Want Them to See This?
How Do I Clear A Student’s Attempt On An Exam?
How Do Students Launch a Lockdown Browser Exam?
Is There a Way to Print Off My Tests Within Blackboard?
Why Can’t My Students See The Assignment Instructions?
Why Are My Students Being Asked for an Access Code on Their Test?
How Do I Grant One Student Access to a Test After the Due Date?
Can I Batch Download All Student Files Submitted for a Particular Assignment?
What’s the Best Way to Add an In-Class Assignment to My Course?
How Can I Direct Submit Student Work to SafeAssign if SafeAssign Hasn’t Been Activated on the Assignment?
How Do I Give a Student Extra Time on a Test?
How Do Students Add a File of Their Work Into an Assignment Submission Link?
Gradebook/Grading
Automatic Zeros in the Gradebook…How/When Does the Zero Populate?
How Can I Divvy Up Grading Tasks With My TA?
How Do I Access a Rubric Attached to a Discussion Forum so I Can Complete Grading?
What Are The Differences in Benefit/Functionality of the Overview, Gradable Items, Grades, and Students Tabs?
How Can I Get More Screen Real Estate When Viewing Submitted Work?
When Viewing Student Submissions Inline, Why Are Some Details Omitted?
I’ve Graded the Assignment, Why Can’t Students See Their Score?
How Do I Grade Discussion Posts?
Can I Remove Students Who Withdrew From the Course From the Gradebook?
I’ve Graded the Activity Yet the System Still Says the Item Needs Grading – Why?
Why Does an Exclamation Point Appear on the Gradebook Tab in My Course?
How Can I Add a Column to the Gradebook?
Can I Exclude a Student’s Attempt From Grading?
How Can I Ensure the Grading Schema I Use to Grade is What Is Used in the Course?
Content or graded activities can be released to students at a day/time of your choosing through a feature called Release Conditions. You can set the conditions by which to allow access to the desired item by clicking on the title of the item, then selecting Release Conditions from the drop-down menu in the upper right corner. In the image below, you can see the test will be released to All members of the class at 8:00 am on August 28th and it will be available to students until 11:59 PM on September 2nd. NOTE: The Access Until date/time cannot be the same as the Due Date date and time. You can set the Access Until date to be 1 minute after the Due Date if desired.
Once the Release Conditions are saved, you then see the screen below where there are (2) additional options of Show and Hide.
- Show: Allows students to see the item for which a Release Condition is being set on the Content tab, but they cannot access it until the day/time you have set.
- Hide: Students do not see the item on the Content tab until the day/time you have set occurs, then the item appears on the Content tab and they can access.
The default is to Show students the item. If desired, you can change that to Hide (Note: You do not have to hit Save to retain the Show/Hide status):
There are two options for pushing messages to your class:
- Announcements: Creating an announcement and selecting the “Send an email copy to recipients” box sends the full announcement message to the student’s CMU email.
- Messages: from the Messages tab, you can select to send a message to the entire class, which also goes to student’s CMU email account. The difference between Announcements and Messages is that students can respond to a message, but they cannot respond to an Announcement. Any responses to a message are received in your CMU email account.
When a student does not submit work by the identified due date/time listed on the activity, the Bb Gradebook will automatically award a score of “0” for that item. If a student submits the assignment after the due date/time, they still receive a “0” score but the instructor also sees “New Submission” listed with the Automatic Zero (displayed on the Grades Tab view) and the late attempt submission date/time on the Submission View for that graded activity. For a student who submitted the item late, the instructor can decide if they wish to accept the late submission and, if so, can override the score of “0” in the grade cell.
Grades Tab View of a Submission Made After the Due Date/Time Has Passed
If you are collecting work in-class versus having students upload work into Blackboard, consider building the assignment as an Offline submission. When the due date/time is reached, the Gradebook will not automatically populate a score of “0”.
Submission View of the Item Submitted After the Due Date/Time
Grading responsibilities can be divided between the instructor and teaching assistants using Delegated Grading to provide each grader with a set of students they are responsible for grading. Delegated Grading is turned on for each assignment in the course within the settings panel for the assignment. It cannot be used on group assignments.
If your course has more than one instructor, determine which instructor is the “primary” instructor of record. This ensures that when students email the instructor from the Blackboard course shell, it goes to this instructor and that Announcements posted in the course are posted in the name of the primary instructor. To set this, go to the Roster found in the Details & Actions menu > 3 dots next to desired primary instructor’s profile card > member information > check the Primary Instructor box > Save.
If the file is attached in the course as “Download Only”, when the title is clicked, it places the file in the Downloads folder on one’s computer. You have to watch the upper right corner of your computer screen real close to see that this has occurred (it only flashes for a second). Students then need to open their Downloads on their computer. You can change the settings on the file to allow it to open inline, within Blackboard for viewing as well as still allow it to be downloaded. Here is how you can adjust the settings. How you do this will vary by how the document was added to the course. An issue has been identified with files attached to an assignment. When attaching a file via the Content Editor, despite selecting the option to either “View & Download” or “View only”, once added, faculty and students cannot open the file inline in Bb and instead it automatically goes into one’s Downloads. This is occurring on Assignments only -- files attached to Tests or uploaded into the course do appear inline when a “view” option is selected. CMU is investigating this matter and a ticket has been opened with Anthology as well.
Method 1: click Edit in the upper right corner > then the 3 dots to the right of the item > Edit File:
In the box that opens, select View & Download > Save > Then Save again in the upper right corner:
Method 2: From the Content tab, click the 3 dots to the right of the item > Edit:
In the side panel that opens, select View & Download > Save:
Each Bb course shell has 1 GB quota. If your course has unusually large files within it, these can quickly eat up the space available in the course. A capability in Blackboard is the Unused Files feature. This feature identifies files within the course not in use that are counting towards the quota. You can select these file items to omit them from the course and free up extra space.
Click the 3 Dot menu to the right of the magnifying glass > Unused Files:
Check the top box to the left of “File Name” to select all the unused files in the course > Delete Files > Confirm Delete Files:
Showing your students the score earned on a test along with the ability to see correct answers or view their submission is determined by options in the Test Settings Panel. You can identify what students have access to and when (e.g. upon submission, after the due date, after grades have been posted) through the “Assessment Results” section. To access, click on the title of a test > Gear Icon to open the Test Settings Panel on the right > Scroll to the Assessment Results section > use the Assessment Results & Feedback Tutorial to guide you in selecting the options desired.
My Textbooks and Concourse Syllabus, CMU’s university-wide syllabus creation tool, are integrations added into Bb – they are not a capability of Blackboard itself and are instead, added to the Bb environment. As such, Student Preview mode will not work with these tools or any other integrations added into Bb (e.g. McGraw-Hill Connect, Cengage MindTap, Pearson MyLab, etc.).
When clicking My Textbooks, if you can see the textbooks listed for your course, so can your students. For Concourse Syllabus, once the syllabus link is clicked, select Syllabus in the upper right, then View – this is the view students have of your syllabus if using Concourse Syllabus. You can also go to the Users tab and see which students have accessed/viewed the syllabus:
There are a couple of ways to clear a student’s attempt on a test or add another attempt for the test – either through an Exception or by deleting the attempt.
Option 1 - Adding an Exception: You can add an exception to the student in question by allowing just this one student an additional attempt on the exam.
Option 2 - Clearing An Attempt: You can delete the failed attempt to allow the student to re-start the test.
The way a student initiates a Respondus Lockdown Browser (LDB) exam differs slightly in Bb Ultra, becoming a bit more straight-forward in the new interface. Now, students only need to access the course, then the exam. In the past, they first had to launch the LDB software from an icon on their desktop – this step is no longer needed. They must already have the Lockdown Browser software installed on their computer or else they will be prompted with a message to download the software in order to proceed.
You can copy Lockdown Browser instructions for your students from the Blackboard Repository shell you are enrolled in.
In the Bb Repository is a Respondus Module that contains already-created instructions for LDB or LDB/RM exams. From your teaching shell, where you want the updated LDB instructions to reside, click the Purple Plus > Copy Content > search on Repos (or you may immediately see it in your course listing near the top) > click on the Repository shell title and continue to drill into the content to find the Respondus module and select which set of instructions you want – the top two are meant for students. The bottom items are meant only for you, the instructor:
Often faculty would like to a print or save a digital copy of the tests housed within their Bb course. From within the assessment, a Print button and, once clicked, gives the option to print only the questions or the questions with answers:
At the print screen presented, you can choose to print your test or save it as a PDF:
The “Oops” message can be received when accessing various content items. It most often occurs for an Instructor after using the Student Preview mode. To clear this code, try clearing the cache on your computer, close your browser, then reopen it.
For students to see assignment instructions or attachments you have added to aid them in completing an assignment, they have to start the assignment attempt. Please guide your students to click Start Attempt on the right panel to access instructions. Starting the attempt does not count as a submission attempt and thus does not negatively impact the student or number of attempts they have on the assignment. Newly created assignments in Blackboard, ill now state "View Instructions" instead of "Start Attempt". Blackboard is working to create a conversion process that will adjust verbiage on existing assignments to "View Instructions" but this isn't expected until December 2024.
When exams were migrated from an Original shell that used Lockdown Browser, the system automatically turned on the Access Code feature in Ultra. This feature blocks a student’s access to the exam as they are then prompted for an Access Code when attempting to launch the exam. You will need to turn this feature off. To determine if your exams have Access Code turned on for LDB Exams, click on the title of the test (again only if the test is using Lockdown Browser. All other tests are fine) > Gear Icon to open the settings panel > scroll to Assessment Security section > if it indicates “Add Access Code” the test is fine and nothing further is needed. If it says “Access Code Required” click on the hyperlink and in the window that opens, toggle off “Access Code Required”:
Image of a test that doesn’t have the Access Code Activated (test is okay)
Image of a test that does have the Access Code Activated and needs to be removed.
Yes, it is possible to download all student’s submitted work at once for a graded activity. Go to the activity > Submissions tab > 3 dots on the right> Download All
Click on the student’s name to view the posts she’s made, click the grade pill to open the rubric on the right side.
Sometimes one student needs an extension on a test or graded activity but you don’t wish to open that activity to all students on the course. This can be done by granting the one student an exception through the Gradebook. Go to the Gradable Items tab > click on the title of the activity > go to Submissions tab > locate student who needs the exception > click the 3 dots to the right of the student’s name > Add or Edit Exceptions > adjust the due date for the student in the right-side panel that opens > Save.
If you would like to run student work through SafeAssign, but don’t’ have SafeAssign turned on, on the assignment, you can direct submit the work into SafeAssign by either copy/pasting the student submission in or uploading a file of their work. Go to the Details & Actions menu > Books & Tools > SafeAssign (list at the top) > Upload file or Copy/Paste.
There are two ways to add a graded activity to the Gradebook that is not submitted into Bb but turned in, in class:
- Manually Add a Column to the Gradebook: the drawback to this method is that if you add a Due Date to the item, when that due date occurs and if you haven’t awarded a grade by the due date, the system will automatically award a score of “0” (hence Option #2 may be the better route). This option is better for items that don’t require a submission (e.g. participation, attendance scores)
- Create an Offline Assignment: you can create an assignment and check the “Collect Submissions Offline” box to indicate students are submitting their work in-class. When the due date is hit for an offline submission activity, the system will not automatically award a score of zero under the assumption that students submitted their work directly to the instructor. In addition, with an offline submission activity, you can add a rubric if desired (a rubric cannot be added to a manually created Gradebook column)
Students will need to mark subject matter items completed (e.g. documents, files uploaded, videos). A half-full circle indicates a student started the item, but did not complete it. Subject matter content isn’t marked as ‘completed’ just because an item is accessed, the student has to click on that half-circle to mark it ‘done’ (e.g. make the green check mark appear). For graded activities in the course, the green check mark is automatically added once the student has submitted the assignment or taken the test (see Week 1 Quiz example).
The “Oops” message can be a frequent annoyance and is very cryptic. It most often occurs after using the Student Preview mode. To clear this code, try clearing the cache on your computer, close your browser, then reopen it. This most often does the trick. We apologize for this little bugger appearing and have shared our concerns with Anthology.
This is a tricky one. Blackboard offers the ability to send the class, an individual student, or select students a message. Messages go to the student’s CMU email address. Students have two options for replying to a message:
Option 1 - Selecting “Reply” to the Email: Just as we do when we wish to respond to an email received, students can select “reply” and respond to the message received. Their response is sent to the instructor’s email. No other students on the message see the response, even if “reply all” is selected.
Option 2 – Selecting “View Message” To Make a Reply: Within the message received is a “View Message” button. If clicked, the student can view the message within Bb and make a response. A response made in this manner is viewable to all students on the message.
The Gradebook offers multiple ways to view the same information just in different ways. Each tab in the Gradebook also offers unique benefits the other tabs don’t. Here’s a breakdown:
Overview Tab: This is the newest tab now available in the Gradebook. Here, instructors see items in need of grading and/or in need of posting each within their “Needs Grading” and “Needs Posting” section. This is a great tab to initiate grading from.
Gradable Items Tab: This tab provides another view of items in need of grading and posting. It also provides a clear overview of all the graded activities in the course. This tab provides the easiest way to re-sort the order of graded activities by dragging and dropping them where desired.
Grades Tab: Here the instructor can see each student’s overall standing in the class through the Overall Grade column which shows the students score earned in the course to date. With this view you can also clearly see points earned/posted, new submissions in need of grading, Automatic Zero’s awarded, and items not graded because no submission has been made.
Students Tab: This tab provides the student’s last access of the course and their overall grade. By clicking on the name of the student, you are taken to the Student Overview page where you can view a breakdown on scores earned on individual assignments, view the student’s progress in the course (what they have accessed, what they have completed, what they haven’t started). From the Student Overview page you can view additional “Student Activity” information, view accommodations (if any), or send a message.
It's important to have enough screen space to adequately view student submitted work. To gain a better view of submissions, here are a few things you can try:
- Collapse the left and right side panels using the arrow keys to gain space to view the submitted work:
- Increase the view of submitted work by clicking on the
icon in the Bb Annotate ribbon:
An issue has been brought to our attention that when viewing student submissions inline, the student’s responses may be truncated. If the submission is downloaded and viewed, their full answer is visible. A ticket has been submitted with Anthology, Blackboard’s parent company and it is currently being investigated. It appears that Chrome handles rendering the submission inline the best so it would be our recommendation to grade using the Google Chrome browser.
Grading in Blackboard is now a 2-Step process:
- Awarding the score earned
- Posting the score given
Students cannot see their grade until you post them. You can either post scores as you grade or you can save them until all grading has been complete and then post them all at once. The new Overview tab in the Gradebook offers a convenient “Needs Posting” section to post all available scores.
Grading Discussions can be initiated from 2 locations:
- Discussions Tab > click on Discussion forum in need of grading > Grades & Participation tab > click on a student with posts in need of grading.
- Gradebook Tab > Overview tab > click on forum with posts to grade
Once in a student’s posts, you will see their posts are highlighted in green and any replies made by classmates to the student’s post also appear (in white).
To award a score, click on the Grade Pill at the top. If a rubric is attached to the forum, click on 
icon to open the rubric. A score can be directly entered into the Gradepill. The 
icon, once clicked, opens to allow feedback to be entered by the instructor. See also Grading Discussions tutorial
Blackboard provides a Discussion Analysis of the student’s post that the instructor can use to aid in grading. If used, it is recommended you review the Discussion Analysis tutorial to ensure understanding of the information provided and how it is calculated.
Students who withdrew from the course, identified by an icon with a slash through it, still appear in the Gradebook but can be hidden from view.
To hide withdrawn students, click on Course Settings found in the upper right corner.
In the menu that opens, toggle “Hide Students in the Gradebook” on.
If grades are awarded via an Override the system is not acknowledging a score was awarded and still indicates the item needs to be graded. An Override Grade can be given by typing the score directly into the cell from the Grades tab or from the Grading Panel interface.
Grade Override Given From the Grades Tab, Directly Entered into the Cell
Grade Override Given From the Grading Interface
To remove the activity from the “Needs Grading” count, enter the score in the white grade pill circled above on the Grading Interface. CMU Administrators have elevated to Anthology the concerns over this workflow.
Students receiving accommodations that are allowed extra time to complete a test, can be granted additional time through the Roster found in the Details & Actions menu on the right side of the course:
Once in the Roster, locate the student in need of accommodations > click the 3-dot menu on their profile card > Accommodations:
In the Accommodations panel that opens, check the Time Limit Accommodation and enter in the corresponding extra time percentage, then Save:
ADDITIONAL TIME EQUIVALENT OF EXTRA TIME PERCENTAGE:
- 1.5 times additional time equates to 50% in Bb settings.
- Double additional time equates to 100% in Bb settings.
- 2.5 additional time equates to 150% in Bb settings.
Once an accommodation is set on the student, a purple ribbon appears next to the student’s name. Only you see this ribbon. Accommodations set on the student profile card apply to all timed graded activities in the course.
An Exclamation Point appears on the Gradebook Tab when there are no items to grade but there are scores that need posting:
A column is often needed in the Gradebook to track various items for which students don’t submit work for (e.g. participation, attendance, extra credit opportunities, etc.). It is easiest to manually add a column to the Gradebook from the Gradable Items tab. From where you would like the new column to reside in the list of gradable items, click the Purple Plus > Add Item.
In the side panel that opens, give the item a name, set the visibility, ensure the correct point value and category is assigned. If no due date is needed for the item, highlight the date in the box and delete. If students will be submitting work offline to you, rather than manually adding a column to the Gradebook, consider creating an Offline Submission.
A Course Link added to a shell seamlessly re-directs students to the item located elsewhere in the course. To be able to pass to the item without a hitch, the item, and/or the module or folder it may be contained in, must be set to visible to student. If students have shared they cannot see the item, first check the visibility of the item to ensure it is not set to hidden from view.
Release Conditions and Exceptions are similar in that they release content or graded activities to a student or select student(s) based on criteria determined by the instructor. Release Conditions are best used to release content or graded activities to the class or select students on an identified date or once established performance criteria have been met by the student. An Exception is best used to grant a student an extension on the due date or another attempt on the graded activity.
From the assignment created in Blackboard, Students see the submission box for the assignment:
Students can drag/drop their file into that box to attach it OR if they click into the box, the Content Editor menu appears, and they can click on the Paperclip Icon to attach their file:
There are some circumstances where an attempt doesn’t need to be graded. For example, the student may have submitted the wrong file, or their submission may be incomplete or an outlier. With the Exclude Attempt feature, the instructor can remove the submission from the grading workflow without having to delete the item. If an attempt is excluded, the Excluded label appears above the attempt grade and in the attempt selector. Grade calculations ignore excluded attempts. Students aren’t automatically granted an additional attempt if an attempt is excluded. You can grant additional attempts to the student via an Exception.
A default grading schema comes pre-loaded into each Blackboard course shell. This schema is one in which 94-100% = A. If adjustments need to be made to this schema, it can be done from the Gradebook Tab > Gear Icon > Manage Schemas. See this tutorial on Accessing & Editing the Grade Schema.
If additional schemas reside in the course that are not being used, highlight that schema > click the 3 dots to the right of the title > Delete:
