Pushing Grades from Blackboard to Banner
Short demonstrations and help sessions scheduled

Instructors turning in final grades on the Purdue West Lafayette campus will no longer fill out paper grade sheets by hand. This semester, instructors will turn in final grades electronically, through the Banner system or by "pushing" the grades from their Blackboard classes to the Banner system.

While entering grades online through Banner is a simple process, in Blackboard, instructors can quickly and easily submit an entire class of grades at one time. This makes it a good option, particularly for large enrollment classes. "What many instructors don't yet realize is how simple it really is to send grades to the registrar using Blackboard," says TLT Support Specialist Ben Holmes. "It is basically a three-step process to submit grades for all students in your section. A lot easier than filling in bubbles."

To push grades from Blackboard, instructors will use an "Export to SIS" tool that will display at the bottom of the Blackboard grade book beginning Monday, December 15 at 8am. It will be available in Blackboard until the last day that grades are due, Tuesday, December 23, at 5pm. These are the same times and dates that instructors will be able to submit final grades via Banner.

The Instructional Development Center (IDC) has scheduled three short online sessions via Adobe Connect to demonstrate Blackboard's grade pushing process, as well as help sessions which faculty can come to when they are ready to push grades from Blackboard. See the "Upcoming Training" links at the left to register for any of these sessions.

Flash 10 Incompatibility with Adobe Acrobat Connect
Incompability will accelerate upgrade to next version of Acrobat Connect

Some users are not able to open their virtual meetings in Adobe Acrobat Connect. When they try to open a Connect meeting, they receive a message instead that says, "Adobe Acrobat Connect requires Flash Player 8,0,0,0 or newer. Check our troubleshooting page for further assistance."

This occurs when users have installed the latest version of Flash, Flash 10.

Adobe recommends uninstalling Flash 10 and reinstalling an older version, such as Flash 9. Please contact your local IT staff or itap@purdue.edu for assistance.

Because of this, TLT will be upgrading its Connect server from version 6 to version 7 during Thanksgiving week. The exact date will be determined soon and published on Purdue's Adobe Acrobat Connect site.

In addition to fixing the incompatibility problem with Flash 10, Connect 7 will bring with it many exciting new features:

• edit and download recordings
• create breakout rooms from within one Connect room for group work
• new management features for access and entry
• enhanced participant rights

For an advance look at some of the new features, visit some of the tutorials under "Acrobat Connect Pro Meeting" on Adobe's Acrobat Connect resources page.

TLT Toolbox: Adobe Presenter

Many faculty are aware that Purdue University has a university license for Adobe Acrobat Connect, but many don't know that Adobe Presenter is also part of the package.

Adobe Presenter allows anyone using Microsoft PowerPoint to quickly and easily create professional-looking Flash presentations, complete with audio narration, interactivity, animations, and quizzes. Adobe Presenter automatically packages the presentation with a customizable 'skin': an easy-to-follow, clickable index, thumbnails and notes panes, and video playback controls.

Presentations can then be uploaded to the Web or to Blackboard, or to Purdue's Adobe Acrobat Connect server.

Purdue's license covers use of Adobe Presenter by all faculty and staff.

To download your copy of Adobe Presenter, go to http://gomeet.itap.purdue.edu, log in to your Connect home page, click the Getting Started link, then click "Install Adobe Presenter".

5 Things to Know ...about pushing grades from Blackboard to Banner
1. Grades can be pushed from the Blackboard grade book to Banner more than once, if necessary. They can also be pushed from Blackboard, then subsequently changed in Banner (or vice versa).
2. Grades will be pushed using the "Export to SIS" dropdown menu at the bottom of the grade book window. The menu will not display in the grade book until Monday, December 15 at 8am, and it will be available until the last day that grades are due, Tuesday, December 23, at 5pm.
3. You must be a Banner-designated instructor for a class in order to enter grades into the Banner system or to push grades from the Blackboard grade book to Banner. In a "cross-listed" class - a parent class composed of individual sections, each taught by a different Banner-designated instructor - each instructor can successfully push grades from the 'parent class' for their own students only.
4. If someone in the Blackboard role of a Teaching Assistant or Instructor - anyone not a Banner-designated instructor - attempts to push Blackboard grades to Banner, an error will be displayed, but no damage will be done.
5. Grades are pushed to Banner from the "Final" grade book column. If you like, this column can be changed to an "Alphanumeric" column type to enter letter grades that can be pushed. Or, you can push the numeric "Calculated" default column type, and change the number values in that column to a letter grade by setting up the letter grade schema during the process of pushing the grades.

Subscribe to Outage Notifications
Get email or RSS notification of system outages

Have you ever had a student insist she couldn't log in to Blackboard to take a quiz? Or did a student perhaps claim he couldn't print a paper out because printing was down in the ITaP instructional labs?

You can be notified via email of unscheduled system outages by subscribing to ITaP system outage notifications, or by subscribing to an RSS feed for unscheduled outages.

At the system outage notification subscription page, you will be asked log in with your Purdue Career Account, and to enter your name, email address, and select the services about which you want to be notified. Expand each heading to see the services to which you can subscribe: these are available for a large number of ITaP services, such as the Purdue AirLink, OnePurdue, and many TLT services, such as Blackboard and Course Email Lists.

Outage notifications you might consider subscribing to (Category > Subcategory > Service):

• Telecommunications > ADSL Service - ResNet and/or Off-campus
• University Data Network > Virtual Private Network (VPN)
• University Data Network > Wireless Service (Purdue Airlink)
• Enterprise Business and Student Applications > File & Print > ITaP Career Account File Space Service
• Mainframe Applications > Student Services > Registrar
• Messaging Services - Exchange
• Messaging Services - Mailhub
• OnePurdue Student > [variety available]
• Teaching & Learning > Online Services > [choose from] Blackboard Vista, Plagiarism Detection, Qualtrics, Software Remote, TLT Course Email Lists

You can also check ITaP's System Availability page to learn about upcoming scheduled system changes, or to check for system outages by date or system type.

Blackboard Users' Group Meeting
Last one of the semester

Mark your calendars for the final Blackboard Users' Group meeting of the Fall 2008 semester:

Monday, December 8
12-1pm (lunch will be provided)
Stewart Center, room 318

An agenda will be sent out shortly before, but the meeting will include a live demonstration of the grades pushing process from a Blackboard class to Banner.

If you cannot attend in person, please join us from your home or office via Adobe Acrobat Connect at http://gomeet.itap.purdue.edu/vug . Type in your name and enter as a guest. All you need is a headset or speakers to listen in.