HCTC Updates and End of Semester To-Do's

We are are drawing near on another Spring Learn By Term Semester. I just wanted to provide some general updates from the KCTCS DL Meeting a few weeks ago and some End of the Term To-Do's.

Online Learning Updates

Blackboard will be changing hosting services from the Center for Rural Development in Somerset to Blackboard doing our hosting. We have not been given a time frame of when migration will occur (just that it will be over the summer) or how long the process will take. As soon as I am notified, I will let you know. 

Some new features in Blackboard that were available with the update in December were covered including the Bb profile, global settings and notifications, inline grading, retention center, integrated calendar, course list reordering, test analysis, course evaluations, and course/outcome alignments. Social media is being integrated more and more within Bb. Accessible content was also a big topic and further discussions will be coming about ADA. Here is a video link about how to make your documents accessible (for online), and finally, Blackboard will be adding the Bb Analytics this summer. We will be learning more about this feature in the fall term.

End of Semester To-Do’s – Preparing for the end of term

At the end of each semester, you will Archive and Export your course for safe keeping. The Archive is a complete copy of the course with student work and grades. It is the faculty's responsibility to retain an archive of the course. The Export saves your content without the student work and grades. The Export may be used in the future to import content into a new Blackboard course shell.

Reminder: It is the instructor's responsibility to keep a record of the gradebook and any other needed material throughout the semester. You may choose to export your course and/or back up your gradebook several times throughout the semester to ensure you have a copy for disaster recovery or any other unforeseen events. Remember to delete these from the system after download. You can also make your course unavailable in the Blackboard (Customization > Properties and click No on availability and click submit). If you have incompletes, do not make the course unavailable.

Link to End of Semester Checklist