Starting December 31, 2018, Blackboard Instant Messaging (BBIM) will no longer be available, as Blackboard has discontinued this service. It is recommended that Bb Collaborate be used in lieu of BBIM.  For more information on Bb Collaborate, click here.

For faculty who choose to use BBIM this fall 2018 semester, there is a known issue where new users cannot download the BBIM file to install the product on their laptop or computer from the Quicklinks, Course Tools area.  Faculty must invite unregistered users via the BBIM application on their computer by following these instructions:

1. Open BBIM on your computer or laptop. 
2. Go to the View menu and make sure that "Show unregistered classmates" is checked.

  

3.      Go to the Classmates tab and expand the "Without Blackboard IM" list for your course.  You can then click on the envelope to invite the unregistered users. 

4.      You can enter an optional message to send to the students in the “Your Message” box.

An email will be sent to students with a link to create an account and download BBIM to their computer.

Updates for Blackboard Learn: what it means for you

Blackboard will be upgraded to the Q4 2017 release on May 20, 2018.
During the upgrade, Blackboard will be unavailable beginning at 3:30 am on May 20th and may be unavailable for up to 20 hours. 

The new Q4 2017 release will provide new features and enhancements that may simplify some of your everyday tasks, offer a better mobile experience, and improve accessibility, assessment and grading. Here are some of the top highlights of this new version:

• Improved mobile experience. When accessing Learn on your mobile device, look for the new hamburger icon that makes navigating BbLearn even easier; plus, many tools are now mobile-friendly including blogs, journals and discussion boards.
• More efficient Grade Center cleanup. You can now delete multiple gradebook columns at once making managing the gradebook easier.
• Discussion board “Replies to me.” Keeping up with discussion posts is simpler with unread replies to your own posts called out.
• Collaborate for groups. Increase student group engagement by offering web conferencing tools. Synchronous collaboration, content sharing and whiteboarding are sure to get your students involved.

Here are a more resources you may find useful:

• Blackboard Innovative Teaching Series (BITS): Blackboard hosts BITS webinars to share strategies and best practices for increasing educator efficiency and improving learning outcomes. You can register for live webinars or watch recordings of past events.
• Blackboard Community Educator Group: Connect with other educators across the world that are using Blackboard through Blackboard’s Community Site.
• Blackboard Help Site: Find detailed documentation on all the features and functionality in Learn on Blackboard’s Help Site.

New Inline Grading Tool Issues

For those of you that have become frustrated with the new “New Box” inline grading tool in Blackboard, you may be interested to read that they are working to improve this feature.

Please see this blog post for more information.