Re-using Turnitin Assignments

To re-use a Turnitin Assignment for the new academic year:

Go to the CONTROL PANEL

click on TURNITINUK ASSIGNMENTS (listed on the left hand side under ‘course tools’

CLICK ON VIEW

You will now see the assignment inbox. If any originality reports were used from the previous year in disciplinary matters, you must download a copy and save it to your machine, as these will be deleted when you renew the assignment.

From the assignment inbox, select the originality report in question and open it

click on the originality report to open it

Once open, click on the ‘download’ icon to collect a copy of the report in html

download the file

Once all the reports required have been collected, you can update the assignment settings to renew the dates and perform a roster sync to list the current students in the assignment box. Full instructions on how to do this are in a related post : updating Turnitin assignments

Updating Turnitin Assignments

To update a Turnitin Assignment for a new academic year, you need to change the date settings that govern when the item appears on Blackboard and the deadline for work to be handed in.

Go to the CONTROL PANEL

click on TURNITINUK ASSIGNMENTS (listed on the left hand side under ‘course tools’

click on view

click VIEW

You will then see the assignment inbox, click on ‘edit assignment’

assignment inbox: click on 'edit assignment'

This will bring up an editing panel, where you can reset the dates for the assignment to appear (start date) the deadline for the work to be handed in (due date). Remember to set the post date at any date after the due date (this is not a feature we use but the dates need to be set in this way for Turnitin to accept the assignment). alter the dates as required and remember to alter any date information in the instructions section. Click on submit when you are finished.

edit assignment

Finally, make sure the students are listed in the assignment inbox, otherwise they may be prevented from being able to submit their work. To do this, click the roster sync button on the assignment inbox:

click roster sync

Downloading a course archive file from Blackboard

The Blackboard system is backed up every night at 2am, however, the back up taken is a whole of system one and cannot be used to restore individual courses. It is therefore recommended that you create a back up file of your blackboard course site regularly. A copy should be taken at the end of each academic year to preserve the teaching materials used in that year for QAA purposes.

The Blackboard back up file (called an archive) is created by the server at your request and stored on the course site (full instructions on how to create your own archive file). You can take a copy of the file to download to your own computer. The archive file cannot be opened and viewed but can be restored to Blackboard if needed.

To collect your archive file:

go to the CONTROL PANEL and choose ‘archive course’ from the course settings menu

control panel

Right click on the long filename in blue to download the file to your local computer.

right click on long filename

Once the file is downloaded you can delete the archive from blackboard by clicking ‘remove’.

delete the archive file from Blackboard

Appeals against Board of Examiners decisions

Appeals against Board of Examiners decisions
Appeals against termination of course
If a student’s course has been terminated, Registry will issue a letter containing instructions on how to appeal.
Appeals against termination of course are dealt with at University level, not by the School or Faculty.
Appeals timetable
Letters informing students of the outcome of their retake exams will be issued by Registry in the week beginning 22nd September 2008.
The deadline for submission of appeals forms (to Registry) is 12 noon on Monday 29th September 2008.
Appeals panels will be held on the 8th and 9th October 2008.
Letters informing appellants of the outcome of appeals will be issued by Registry by the 13th October.
Advice on appeals
Students are advised to discuss their appeal with their Personal Tutor.
The Sudents’ Union Education Unit’s advice on appeals can be found here:
http://www.leicesterstudent.org/pages/support/education/
The Registry’s guidance notes and the form required to appeal can be found here:
http://www.le.ac.uk/ua/ac/registry/AppealsComplaints/Appeals.pdf
http://www.le.ac.uk/ua/ac/registry/AppealsComplaints/CT Appeal Form.doc
Appeals against any other decision of the Board of Examiners
Students have the right to appeal against either their degree classification or a decision to terminate their course but no right to appeal against any other decision by the Board of Examiners or Faculty Board (e.g. resit with/without residence, registration deemed lapsed, proceed and resit, etc).
Requests to the Registry by students for a review of a decision by the Board of Examiners or Faculty Board may be refused or referred to the relevant Board of Examiners to determine whether any new material not available at the Board’s meeting, or evidence of procedural error on the part of the Board, justifies revision of the Examination Board recommendation.

Making a course unavailable or available again!

How to ‘turn off’ a course so that it does not appear in the course catalogue and is not available to students

As an instructor you can change make a course site unavailable to students but still visible to instructors and teaching assistants. Choose CONTROL PANEL > (Course Options) SETTINGS > COURSE AVAILABILITY.  Choose ‘no’ to make the course unavailable to users (i.e. students). This is a good way to ‘hide’ your course while you make updates to it, or to keep an old course site available for QA purposes if it has been replaced with a newer version. To make the course available again, just repeat the procedure, this time selecting ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’.

from University of Leicester Bb tips

Removing staff from Blackboard

You can remove staff from a course that are enrolled as instructors/ teaching assistants etc by first downgrading them to the role of a student. Click CONTROL PANEL:MODIFY/LIST USERS search for the staff member by name or cfs username, click on PROPERTIES and change the staff member’s role to a student. Then CONTROL PANEL:REMOVE USERS FROM COURSE: search for the staff member by name, tick in the box next to their name and type ‘Yes’ in the box below.

Creating a back up of your Blackboard site

The Blackboard system is backed up every night at 2am, however, the back up taken is a whole of system one and cannot be used to restore individual courses. It is therefore recommended that you create a back up file of your blackboard course site regularly. A copy should be taken at the end of each academic year to preserve the teaching materials used in that year for QAA purposes.

The Blackboard back up file (called an archive) is created by the server at your request and stored on the course site. You can take a copy of the file to download to your own computer. The archive file cannot be opened and viewed but can be restored to Blackboard if needed.

to create an archive file:

go to the CONTROL PANEL and choose ‘archive course’ from the course settings menu

control panel

next click on ‘Archive’ to create the backup file

archive file

The file will be created by the server and you will be sent an email when it has been created

Going back to the ‘archive course’ menu, you will now see a new file has been created. Right click on the long filename in blue to download the file to your local computer.

right click on long filename