Fall 2024 Dates

Things that we as facilitators and/or instructors need to do prior to the start of a course.

1. Class Discussion
   1. Check FAQ (make sure all content is brought from last semester's running)
      1. Check How will my java programs be graded? and make sure that the general grading criteria is posted and that it refers to just assignment 14.
      2. If it is missing
         1. Here is the file to download to your computer as of Spring 2024 (and earlier): generalgradingcriteriaforjavaprograms.pdf (It used to have an 08 in front of the file name that's been removed.)
         2. Cursor over the post's text, select Edit
         3. Select the file to upload from your computer.
      3. Also make sure that it only addresses assignment 14:
         In assignment 14 you will be asked to write and submit a Java program. In addition to being graded for its functionality, you will also be graded based on whether your program meets the attached general criteria.
Note when submitting your program, only include the .java files (no other files and no directories) in the .zip file you submit.
   2. Post your introduction thread to Introduce Yourself
   3. Add, or make sure there is, a thread You can reply to this thread to post your intro!
   4. Manage the following Discussion forums so that all students have Role=Reader and not Participant:
      1. Live Classroom slides and Materials
      2. Sample Student Assignment Submissions
      3. FAQ
      4. Errata
   5. Subscribe to discussion threads
      1. Ask a Facilitator
      2. Ask a Math Question
   6. Subscribe to other discussion threads optionally
      1. Introduce yourself (so you can read others' introductions)
      2. XAMPP, Java and Eclipse (so you will see issues and maybe you can help)
      3. Watercooler (to keep track on student-to-student chats)
         
         
2. Internal Messages
   1. Send your welcome message to each of your groups
      
      
3. Live Classrooms/Office
   1. Ensure each Classroom and Facilitator's link is unique
   2. Add description for each facilitator's office. Consider including:
      1. When you'll hold your live office time or class
      2. How long you'll stay if no one shows
      3. A reminder that you can meet 1:1 at other hours with advance notice
         
         
4. Other make-sures
   1. Disable group discussion board
   2. Disable External Email
   3. Make sure all graded assessments don’t allow answer view (as we set that after Thursday)
      
      
5. Grade Center
   1. Ensure all TurnItIn assignment statistics and percentages are removed from student view, currently this is for assignments 1, 5, and 6
      to do this, do for each of the Turnitins:
      1. Grade Center, go to assignment 1's Turnitin column, right click on a row in the column and Grade User Activity
      2. Upper right, click on the gear for Settings
      3. Click on Optional Settings to expand it
      4. Under Similarity Report, remove any checkmark from Allow students to review similarity Reports
         
   2. Make sure only these columns are visible to students:
      1. Last and First Name
      2. Last Access
      3. Username
      4. Student ID
      5. Availability

smi does this so he can search through students taking the course in previous semesters to see when a student has previously taken the course.

Needed tools for these steps:

• OneNote
• LibreOffice Spreadsheet (although Excel should work similarly).

The steps

1. Users and Groups > Users > in lower right, Select All lists all students that signed up to take the course on a single page
2. Manually select all students listed, copy
3. Open LibreOffice Spreadsheet
4. Paste Special > Paste Unformatted text. Ok the dialog.
5. Sort everything to shove blank lines out of the way
6. Copy appropriate columns (e.g., first & last name, email, role, and yes/no. yes/no is whether they were there at the end of the course.)
7. Go to OneNote, create a page if you want, and then in the page, Paste and Match Formatting

Say it's Summer and you have a student in your group who took the course in Spring.
You want to see what work they did in Spring. But suppose that they dropped the course before the end, and thus they don't show in the Grade Center for the Spring running. You'd like to make that student's entry in the Spring Grade Center visible so you can see the work they had done in Spring, maybe to check against what they do in this current Summer semester.

You need to have access to the Spring running of the course to do this. If you don't have the access, ask the instructor or another facilitator that does have access to do this stuff.

Assuming you can access Spring, here's what you do.

1. In Blackboard, change to the Spring course.
   • To do this: from main Blackboard menu, select Courses. Go ← or → till you see the course you want to view, and select it.
2. Full Grade Center
3. At the top, select Manage > Row Visibility
4. Find the student you want (e.g., Doe John jdoe Hidden)
5. Put a checkmark into the box to the left of their name
6. At the top, select Show Rows (will change selected rows to be Shown)
7. At the very bottom, Submit

Usually we put our grading comments in Blackboard directly. In the past, at times these have been attached to the place where the comments are. You see “See attached for details.” and a file name. This extracted froma UK site

• Students have submitted work to a Blackboard Assignment.
• A marker has used Inline Grading to mark the work, and has attached a feedback file in the FEEDBACK TO LEARNER section.
• A staff member (e.g. an administrator or moderator, or even the same marker) needs to view the attached file.

You are not able to open the file by clicking on the link shown in the ‘Feedback to Learner’ text box, because you are viewing this as editable text.
Follow the instructions below to open a preview of the text that will allow you to open the attached file.

1. Control Panel > Grade Center > Assignments
2. Open the student's attempt
3. Expand the Attempt area to open Feedback to Learner text box.
4. At the bottom of the Feedback to Learner text box, click the Full Content Editor icon, the fancy A.
5. Feedback to Learner full text editor opens in a popup box. Click on the Preview icon or
6. A preview box opens in a new window showing how the feedback will appear to the student. Click on the link to the attached file (it's clickable now).
7. Done. Be sure to close the file and preview box, click Cancel when you're done.

The URL to access BlackBoard for a given class has the form https://onlinecampus.bu.edu/ultra/courses/_NUMBER_1/cl/outline where NUMBER varies each semester. Here is a history of recent NUMBERs.

Sent Monday, September 23, 2024 9:59 AM
Subject Student Resources and Sara Compliance

Dear students,
BU Virtual has compiled a web page of resources at http://www.bu.edu/online/student-resources/ to help online students throughout your time at BU. The page contains information and documents that will guide you through adding and dropping courses and contacting various BU offices, such as the Center for Career Development, the Office of Disability and Access Services, and the BU Bookstore. I recommend bookmarking this page for future reference.

Boston University participates in the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA) which allows the university to offer distance education programs in other SARA member states. To comply with the terms and provision of SARA, Boston University maintains a State Authorization & Distance Education website - http://www.bu.edu/state-authorization/ - which contains information relevant to students participating in distance education activities:

• State Authorization and Boston University approval;
• Complaint Resolution process;
• The University's Refund Policy;
• Information about distance education programs that lead to licensure and certification; and
• Information about International Distance Education

The BU Online website at http://www.bu.edu/online/ also includes valuable career outlook statistics and course offerings for each online program BU offers. Students can also find important information about tuition, fees, technology requirements, and more.
Engage with the Boston University community from wherever you are!

Regards,
Jen
BU Virtual Faculty and Student Support Administrator

There is info on getting help from IT, in the Syllabus, last item “Technical Support”.

For Fall 2024 this page is at https://onlinecampus.bu.edu/ultra/courses/_135893_1/cl/outline, change the 135893 to your current course BB number, above on this wiki page.

The first part of this page says:

Help Desk

Boston University IT Help Desk can be reached via email (ithelp@bu.edu), phone (617-353-4357) or by filling out the support form on their website. For IT Help Desk hours of operation, visit the contact page. If you are contacting IT outside of business hours, you will receive a response the following day. Visit the BU Information Services & Technology (IS&T) news page for announcements and system-wide alerts.