Frequently Asked Questions About Blackboard and Course Technologies

Computer and Internet technology is complex. Conditions change rapidly and without notice. As a result, some of the problems addressed in this section may no longer be problems or the solutions no longer work. Please let us know if any of the information in this section is obsolete or unclear.

1. My instructor says e-mail has been sent to me, but I didn't receive it. Why?

2. After successfully logging into Blackboard, whenever I try to progress from the initial page I receive "Browser Cookies Disabled" error message from Blackboard.

3. I have an access key for my Blackboard course. What is that used for?

4. I can't print out some information I need from a Blackboard course site. Help!

5. Upon submitting a quiz that I have taken online using Blackboard, I receive an error message stating that I am no longer connected to the Internet. 

6. How do you check grades on Blackboard?

7. My instructor asked me to turn in my assignments as Word document or in rich text format. How do I do that?

8. My instructor asked me to submit my homework as an e-mail attachment. How do I do that?

9. How many online courses can be taken at one time?

10. Why can't I login to Blackboard between 7:00 AM and 7:30 AM on weekday mornings.

11. When I use the e-mail feature in Blackboard to send e-mail to someone, the message is rejected by AOL. My e-mail address as registered in Blackboard is also AOL.

12. My instructor uses a "Learning Unit" in the Blackboard course. When I start the learning unit, I cannot go through the units sequentially: my only option is to save it to my computer one file at a time. I'm using Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6. 

13. When I click on a PowerPoint presentation linked within Blackboard, I get only an blank slide in edit mode rather than the presentation. I'm using Office XP.

14. A "file not found" error message is displayed when using Microsoft Internet Explorer to display a Microsoft Word or PowerPoint document that has been converted for Web presentation. Netscape Navigator displays the files okay.

My instructor says e-mail has been sent to me, but I didn't receive it. Why?

Reason 1 - Disk space: Check your e-mail account to make sure you have enough space to receive an e-mail that contains an attachment.

Reason 2 - Spam handling: E-mail sent from within Blackboard course site, either by your instructor or your classmates, shows the source of the e-mail as the Blackboard system rather than the senders' personal e-mail system. For example, the header of the e-mail will show the e-mail was sent from bb.kellogg.edu but the reply-to address is someone@AOL.com. AOL and many other e-mail service providers identify e-mail with this inconsistency as spam (junk e-mail) and blacklist or block the e-mail. If you are using AOL, this places the offending e-mail in the Bulk Sender category.

As you begin each semester, check your Bulk e-mail category regularly before deleting messages. E-mails from your instructor or classmates could be in there. If you do find an e-mail from your instructor in the bulk email folder or category, that email address to your address book or buddy list in AOL. From that time on, e-mails from that person are sent to your inbox and not the bulk email folder or category. (See the Help option or documentation for your e-mail account to specific details for how your e-mail service handles spam.)

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After successfully logging into Blackboard, whenever I try to progress from the initial page I receive "Browser Cookies Disabled" error message from Blackboard.

Blackboard attempts to help by providing the directions for enabling cookies on the "Browser Cookies Disabled" page. Unfortunately these directions provided by Blackboard cannot be followed for Internet Explorer. There is no Cookies section on the Advanced tab in either of these two versions of Internet Explorer.

It is necessary to have cookies enabled on your browser so that Blackboard can remember you have logged in. What are cookies? (This link takes you to an explanation at another website. Click the back arrow on your browser toolbar to return to this page.)

Here are directions for allowing cookies on the various browsers to which I have access.

If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or above:

• Select "Tools" from the menu bar of Internet Explorer
• Select "Internet Options" from the "Tools" menu
• Click on the "Privacy" tab near the top of the window that opens
• In the area titled "Settings" is a slide bar. If it is set at "Block All Cookies", then that is the problem.
• Slide the bar down to either "High" or "Medium"
• Click the "OK" button.

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I have an access key for my Blackboard course. What is that used for?

Access keys are different than the username and password required by Blackboard. To maintain privacy, every user of the Blackboard system is assigned a username and password. However, not every user needs an access key.

Access keys are used when the instructor has included materials in his or her course from another source, typically the publisher of the textbook being used in the course. Publishers ensure that users have paid for use of the materials and protect their intellectual property by making students enter an access key. 

For most courses, student access keys are purchased from the book publisher along with other materials for the course at the bookstore. They are normally packaged with new textbooks. For used textbooks, they usually can be purchased separately.

For a few courses, KCC has purchased the access keys for you and they are distributed by the course instructor.

Even if your Blackboard course site uses an access key, you can still get into the course site without the access key. Without an access key, you can access information within the course that has been created by your instructor. However, the first time you attempt to access the protected information you will be prompted to enter an access key. After entering the access key successfully, you will not need to enter the key again for the duration of the course, even if you access the course from a computer other than the one you used to enter the key.

Blackboard has a help page about the use of access keys on their company site.

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I can't print out some information I need from a Blackboard course site. Help!

Sometimes when you print a page from a Blackboard course site using the browser print function only part of the page prints, for example, the navigation frame of Blackboard. Other possible undesirable outcomes could include a page full of "garbage," or the computer locking up or shutting down.

These problems can be triggered for numerous reasons, but here are a couple: (1) the browser is printing only the active frame and what you want to print is in a different frame, or (2) what you want to print is displayed in the browser using another application, like Word or PowerPoint. 

(1) The easiest solution is to highlight some portion of what you want to print (it doesn't have to be everything you want printed) and then click on the browser print button again. 

Why might this work? Highlighting something in the frame you want printed makes that frame active. 

(2) If that doesn't work, try saving what you want to print and print it from the application. This may be a solution if the information you want to print requires you to click on a link in Blackboard that says something like "Link to file." Instead of clicking on the link the usual way, click on it using the right-hand mouse button. From the menu that appears, choose "Save Target As" or "Save Link As" and save it to the desktop or to a disk. Open this saved file with a word processor or other appropriate application. It should print from the appropriate application with no trouble. 

Why might this work? The browser's print function is only intended for HTML documents, or in other words, web pages. When you see Word, PowerPoint, Adobe PDF documents, etc. in the Blackboard content frame, you are not seeing what the browser rendered, but what some other application rendered in a space provided by the browser. Especially with older versions of browsers, the browser either does not attempt to print the space being used by the other application, or it attempts to print it without being able to properly interpret the various codes in the document used by the application.

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Upon submitting a quiz that I have taken online using Blackboard, I receive an error message stating that I am no longer connected to the Internet. 

This generally happens when your dial-up Internet service provider (ISP) drops you during the quiz because of inactivity (an examples of an ISP is AOL). Many dial-up ISPs disconnect customers after several minutes of inactivity. 

In addition, you could have the settings on your browser set so it disconnects after a certain period of inactivity (important for those on ISP plans with a limit on the amount of time per month they can use the Internet without additional costs). 

If you are disconnected from the Internet while taking a quiz, the culprit could be either the ISP or the browser dropping your Internet connection. Your reaction to the loss of the connection is usually to close the browser and redial your Internet service provider. You have three problems then. (1) If the instructor has allowed only one attempt to take the quiz, you have had your one attempt and you are now locked out of the quiz. You will have to contact your instructor to have the quiz reset so you can try again. (2) Because the answers are only stored on your computer in memory space assigned to the browser, as soon as the browser was closed, that memory was cleared and all the answers were lost. (If you had not closed the browser, you normally could just redial your ISP and, once the connection is reestablished, click the submit button.) (3) You are likely to take just as long to complete the quiz and be dropped again. 

How to avoid the problem? One step is to make sure the disconnection is being done by your ISP and not your computer. In the dial-up settings on your computer, make sure the setting for disconnecting from the Internet for inactivity is set for a generous amount of time. If that setting is okay, then it probably is the ISP that is disconnecting you from the Internet. To verify, you can call your ISP support to confirm they have such a policy and find out what the time limit is. 

You can avoid having your ISP bump you off the Internet for inactivity by making sure there is periodic traffic between your computer and the Internet. Though your browser will not have any data flowing, another program could be active on the Internet as a background task (computers these days can do more than one thing at a time). 

One program that could be communicating over the Internet in the background is your e-mail client. Setting the e-mail client to check for new messages before the auto-disconnect time elapses is the easiest solution. 

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How do you check grades on Blackboard?

Not all instructors use the grade book provided within Blackboard. (Usually the online grade book is used only by those courses that meet 100% online.) If you are in a class where the instructor uses the grade book, from within the course site, click on the Student Tools button in the left-hand frame, then the Check Grade link. If the instructor does not use the feature, the instructor can turn the feature off and it will not appear, so don't be concern if the button or the link is not there.

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My instructor asked me to turn in my assignments as Word document or in rich text format. How do I do that?

The assignment assumes that you will be using a word processor to create the document needed for your assignment. Most Windows-based word processors work similarly and allow you to save a file in a variety of formats. The file format your instructor specified, RTF (an abbreviation for Rich Text Format), is available on all popular word processing programs.

The advantage of RTF is that documents can be shared between different brand word processors without much loss of formatting such as typeface, margins, bullet lists, tables, etc.

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My instructor asked me to submit my homework as an e-mail attachment. How do I do that?

The process for attaching a file to an e-mail message varies considerably with the type of e-mail system and the software product being used. Most e-mail clients have an "Attach" icon on the toolbar (often the icon is a paperclip). The file attachment function is also available either from the "File" menu or the "Tools" menu, depending on which e-mail client you are using. For the file attachment function to appear, you have to be in the process of creating an e-mail message (for example, you will not see the file attachment function when you are reading e-mail or viewing your in-box).

To attach a file to an e-mail message, click on the "Attach" icon or menu selection. The program will display a dialog box. One section of the dialog allows you to browse through the files on your computer to locate the file you want to send. Once you find the file you want to send, select it (highlight it by clicking on it), then click either the "Attach" or "Open" button in the lower corner of the dialog box. The file should now be attached to your e-mail message. Just send the e-mail message as you normally would. A copy of the file will accompany the e-mail to the intended recipient.

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How many online courses at one time? The amount of study and work may vary from course to course, but for college courses you generally need to set aside from your weekly schedule a number of hours equal to three times the course's credit hours. For example, plan on nine hours of work a week for a three credit course. Our advice is to not take more than 18 credits even if you are not employed.

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I cannot login to Blackboard between 7:00 AM and 7:30 AM on weekday mornings. When I attempt access Blackboard, the login page does not appear.

This occurs because the Blackboard system is taken offline at those times for routine maintenance. If you experience this problem, wait until after 7:30 AM and then login. If you wish to take a test or quiz, be sure to complete and submit it before 7:00 AM.

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When I use the e-mail feature in Blackboard to send e-mail to someone, the message is rejected by AOL. My e-mail address as registered in Blackboard is also AOL. 

AOL's mail servers reject mail that has an AOL address in the "From:" line that comes from a mail server other than AOL's. This means that mail from one AOL user to another sent from Blackboard will not work. To the best of our knowledge, AOL appears to be the only major ISP that has this restriction.

This has to do with AOL not allowing redirected mail.

This problem is caused by technology beyond the control of KCC. It seems unlikely that AOL will change how their mail servers handle mail. Blackboard is investigating how to solve the problem, but the earliest a work-around is expected is their 2003 version of Blackboard.

The only work-around we can suggest is to use an e-mail address other than AOL. KCC can provide you with an e-mail account.

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My instructor uses a "Learning Unit" in the Blackboard course. When I start the learning unit, I cannot go through the units sequentially: my only option is to save it to my computer one file at a time. I'm using Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6. 

This appears to be a problem only on Windows XP and is the result of Microsoft changing how some options are set in an effort to improve security. This is one way (I hope there is an easier way, but I haven't found it) to get learning units to work properly.

1. Open Windows Explorer (that's right, Windows Explorer, not Internet Explorer)
2. Click "Tools" on the Menu Line and then "Folder Options..." 
3. Select the "File Types" tab and then scroll to the document type that you want to open automatically. (You will have to complete this procedure for each file type— ppt, doc, wps, wks— you want to open automatically and each computer on which you want this to work.).
4. Uncheck the "Confirm open after download" option
5. Check the "Browse in same window" option.
6. Click "Ok" then "Close"

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When I click on a PowerPoint presentation linked within Blackboard, I get only a blank slide in edit mode rather than the presentation. I'm using Office XP.

Office XP users must apply the most recent Office Service Pack to avoid having PowerPoint trying to open files with a .ppt extension in edit mode (which it is not allowed to do and thus produces a white screen only).

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A "file not found" error message is displayed when using Microsoft Internet Explorer to display a Microsoft Word or PowerPoint document that has been converted for Web presentation. Netscape Navigator displays the files okay.

Many "file-not-found" errors result from Microsoft Word or PowerPoint documents that have been converted for Web use. In some cases, using Netscape Navigator as the browser instead of Microsoft Internet Explorer will allow you to access the problem.

To fix the problem, notify your instructor (and give them a link to this write-up) or KCC Tech Support. In the case of Word, the problem is due to Microsoft Office's use of vector markup language (VML) to describe images, and Internet Explorer's non-standard preference of the VML src attribute over the HTML src attribute. When the instructor uploads a Web page to Blackboard, the uploading scripts automatically recognize the IMG tags and correct their src-attributes to the actual location of the uploaded image file. However, they will NOT correct the VML src attributes, meaning that IE won't find and display the images, whereas Netscape will. In the case of PowerPoint Web page conversion, the default setting is to organize all files into a folder with just a little redirector page outside same folder. When zipping up these files, it is necessary to store path information, so the folder will properly be recreated when uploading to Blackboard and unzipping the archive. In WinZIP 8.x this info is stored by default, but in WinZIP 7.x one has to check the box to "save extra folder info" to avoid "file-not-found" errors. (Solution by Volker Kleinschmidt, University of Illinois - Chicago)

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