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We are pleased to announce that your 1819 module and programme sites have been created and are now ready to receive your content, so you can self-enrol now.
This year (as last) we have again chosen to differentiate between courses taught at the University and those delivered by our academic partners, to reflect the different needs of all concerned and so LearnTech has developed and updated separate templates, making for a more tailored student (and staff) experience.
The template and NILE Standards have been updated for 2018-19 following recommendations approved at the University’s Student Experience Committee and Faculty SECs. Please refer to these for up-to-date guidance on what to include in which section of your NILE sites when preparing them for the coming academic year.
You will note that in-site guidance has again been streamlined to allow for any necessary dynamic updates throughout the academic year, incorporating links to existing support, thus avoiding duplication and avoiding potentially conflicting advice. We have again included the ‘Support for Tutors’ and ‘Support for Students’ resources lists, so please also refer to these for your own assistance and for that of your students.
The template is designed to build on last year’s updating of content: you should therefore all find yourselves in a strong position for this year’s plan to copy over only what is required for the coming years teaching. N.B. If you are using Pearsons content, please do not copy over any site content without first contacting Learning Technology.
For those of you unfamiliar with the process of preparing your sites for the coming year, we have provided updated guidance on how to do this, as well as having Learning Technology team members on standby should you require extra support and assistance. Please email LearnTech Support in the first instance or contact your designated LearnTech.
The LearnTech team is pleased to share some updates and improvements around assessments and related processes in NILE.
Firstly, the Team had been tasked with exploring existing options for applying prompts for students within NILE for both Turnitin and Blackboard assignments as soon as the submission deadline had passed, and non-submission of assessments had been identified. The following solution will provide consistent standardised responses and so allow for appropriate action to be taken to support students. The text going out to students has been approved at the Student Experience Committee.
Updated guidance has been produced as a result and is now available. For Turnitin and Blackboard assignments, tutors have an option to send emails to students who have not submitted an assignment by the due date (including tests, surveys, graded discussion boards, journals or blogs):
Q. How do I send emails to non-submitters from Blackboard?
While staff may have used Turnitin’s ‘Email non-submitters’ option previously, you should be aware that students who are unavailable in your NILE sites will still receive these notifications. Our recommended guidance avoids this outcome.
Secondly, tutors will notice that they now have another option available to them when setting up assessments in NILE – Qwickly Jot. This tool allows you to select an image for students to markup and submit as a piece of work: for example, you may want your students to label a biological diagram or plot a graph. The submissions are linked directly with the Blackboard grade centre, so they can be viewed and marked directly from your module site. Further information and guidance on how to use the tool are available here:
And finally, those of you who are familiar with the LearnTech FAQs may have noticed that they have migrated to a new home, LibAnswers – a central place for Library and Learning Services help.
You can find these along with our NILE Guides by clicking the HELP tab at the top of NILE.
Within the new FAQ’s you can filter your results by selecting “Learning Technology (NILE)” under “Groups” and “Staff” or “Students” under “Topics” on the right-hand side.
Further to our post advising on forthcoming changes to inline grading in Blackboard (NILE), a reminder that the new service, New Box view, will be available from 3 January 2018.
In preparation for this, LearnTech has begun to publish some FAQs for staff and students to provide further guidance on some of the functionality of the new tool which you are welcome to view now and of course to refer back to when the new system goes live.
Upcoming changes to Inline Grading
The third party service (known as the Crocodoc plug-in) used by Blackboard’s inline grading tool is being discontinued and replaced. If you are using Blackboard’s inline grading to give students feedback, this information is for you.
Box, the provider of the service used by inline grading, have announced that Crocodoc will no longer be supported after 15 January 2018, and that all users will therefore need to start using the replacement, New Box View.
What is inline grading?
Inline grading is the ability to use a web browser to annotate student attempts on a Blackboard assignment. The screenshot below shows a student’s assignment attempt:
Are you affected by this?
You are only affected if you use Blackboard assignments to collect and feedback on your students’ work, and if you use the inline grading tools to annotate.
The ‘Feedback to Learner’ box (right hand side of the screenshot, above) is not affected.
Does this apply to Turnitin?
No, Turnitin is a separate plug-in.
What is going to happen next?
The LearnTech team have been testing the New Box View, as well as how it will affect the other features of Blackboard, prior to making the switch.
We will update you with further guidance via the LearnTech blog prior to switching over, so watch this space.
New Box view will be activated on 3 January 2018; we wanted to give you some advanced notice so that you can make any necessary adjustments, as guided by the following information.
What about existing work marked in Crocodoc?
Any assignments currently graded with the Crocodoc function will be migrated automatically over to New Box View.
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Annotations made in Crocodoc will not be editable once they have been migrated to New Box View– they will be burned into the document.This applies to all existing annotations on a submission in Crocodoc – regardless of whether it has yet been released to students or not. |
What will change?
| Comparison of New Crocodoc and New Box View | ||
| Crocodoc | New Box View | |
| File types | .pdf, .ppt, .pptx, .xls, .xlsx, .doc, .docx | Over 100 different file types |
| Annotation types | Text and point-based comments, highlighting, and drawing | Point-based comments and highlighting |
| Download | You can download a copy of a student file with the option to download in the original format or in a PDF version that includes the annotations | You can download a copy of a student file, but annotations won’t appear |
Where can I read more?
Blackboard’s Help site has more detailed information on the transition from Crocodoc to New Box View.
As previously mentioned, we will be posting more information on the LearnTech blog, as well as the NILE welcome page for staff.
Who can I contact?
Contact the Learntech Support team with any questions: learntech@northampton.ac.uk.
We have just enabled an improved way for staff and students to login to NILE. The screen below shows the new Single Sign On (SSO) button which you will now see on the NILE login screen. By clicking onto this button, your machine will try to log you in using details already held on your computer. If it fails then it will just ask you to type in your normal username and password.
The box below this is actually the same box that was previously on NILE and this will also work if your type in your details in the old way. If the new button does not immediately work then you may just need to clear your browsers cookies using the details at the bottom of this message.
Clearing your browser cookies
If you receive an error when trying to log in, it may help to clear your browser cookies. When doing so, ensure you don’t select other items that you want to keep. For example, you may wish to keep saved passwords and your browsing history.
- The keyboard shortcut for Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer is ctrl+shift+delete. For Safari it is ctrl+alt+e.
- If you are unsure on how to clear cookies for your particular browser, please refer to the browser’s own website for help.
In the wake of the creation of the new 1718 module sites, we are delighted to announce the unveiling of this year’s programme sites.
Following a recommendation to encourage a more uniform use of and engagement with these sites represented in the paper to SEC in February to help foster student programme identity, a task and finish group was subsequently formed to address what was required within the template. This resulted in the production of a more user-friendly left-hand menu and an updated version of NILE minimum standards to incorporate suggested content for each section. These were finally approved at SEC in May 2017.
A part of producing the updated template was involving colleagues across student facing services: this has allowed us to incorporate some core content for your programme sites in order to enhance the quality/clarity/consistency of information across all sites in all Faculties. We now require the programme leaders and their colleagues to take ownership of these sites and following the guidance, to add programme/ subject specific content for the benefit of your students.
As always, the Learning Technologists are on hand to help you if assistance is required.
As we fly through this year’s exam period and summer approaches, the LearnTech team has been looking ahead to the next academic year and preparing the 2017-18 NILE templates.
This year we have chosen to differentiate between courses taught at the University and those delivered by our academic partners, to reflect the different needs of all concerned. This has led to the creation of separate templates, making for a more tailored student (and staff) experience.
On the back of this, we are pleased to announce that your 1718 module sites have been created and are now ready to receive your content, so you can self-enrol now.
The template and NILE Standards have been updated for 2017-18 following recommendations approved at the University’s Student Experience Committee and Faculty SECs.
You will note that your module sites’ guidance has been streamlined to allow for any necessary dynamic updates throughout the academic year, incorporating links to existing support, thus avoiding duplication and avoiding potentially conflicting advice.
The template is designed to build on last year’s declutter/ updating of content: you should therefore all find yourselves standing in good stead for this year’s plan to copy over only what is required for the coming years teaching. For those of you unfamiliar with the process there is guidance on hand to assist you with this process as well as Learning Technology team members on standby should you require extra support and assistance. Please email LearnTech Support in the first instance or contact your designated LearnTech.
It’s never too early to start, so why not begin now? Consider getting head of the game; enjoy the summer break safe in the knowledge that some of your preparation for the coming academic year is already completed.
LearnTech are archiving some of the older NILE sites which are no longer being actively used. This keeps our server storage low, so the University remains under quota and avoids unnecessary subscription charges. This year, all of the sites from the academic year 2012/2013 have been selected for archiving. These sites have been disabled on the system and are no longer available for general use.
The full list of affected NILE sites can be found here: 12/13 NILE sites for archive. The file should open with Acrobat reader, which is installed on all PCs. You should should use ‘Ctrl-F’ and search for the sites that interest you by module code, or module name.
If you do wish for a 12/13 site to be re-enabled, please contact LearnTech via email (learntech@northampton.ac.uk) before 14th October with the module codes and titles of any sites you need to remain live and exclude from the archive process.
We would like to emphasize that we are archiving, not deleting, so sites and files can be recovered at a later date if necessary.
This week I have been having a look at making the grade centre easier to read and navigate by applying colours. The grade centre can be a rather complicated beast, particularly when you have large numbers of students and various assignment points within a module. Searching and finding students work can be tricky, students who do not submit can be missed and those students at risk may fall through the net. By applying colour coding to the grade centre columns you can highlight various stages in the grading process including, ‘Needs Grading’, G grades and assessments that have not yet been attempted and let’s face it- a little bit of colour can go a long way!
Colour coding your grade centre can be useful for:
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Quickly highlighting at risk students
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A traffic light system to highlight various grades in the grade centre
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Quickly see students who have not submitted any work and those pieces that need grading
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Highlighting marks within a specific range, for example A grade students
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Spotting students work ‘In Progress’ (usually online tests or online submissions)
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Quickly being able to see student development (when traffic light system is employed)
To apply colour coding to the grade centre you can follow these quick instructions:
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Go to ‘Full Grade Centre’.
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Click ‘Manage’ and choose ‘Grading Colour Codes’.
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You will now see the Grading Colour Codes page. Select the box to allow you to add ‘Grading Colour Codes’.
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If you want to colour code items that are In Progress, Needs Marking or Exempt, click to change the Background Colour to your chosen colour (keep in mind accessibility issues).
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If you want to colour code ranges of marks, click the ‘Add Criteria’ button. Select the criteria for highlighting:
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‘Between’ two grades, ‘More than’ a grade or ‘Less than’ a grade.
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Choose a Background Colour and a colour for the Text.
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If you want to add more criteria, click ‘Add Criteria’ again.
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Click ‘Submit’ to apply the colour coding to the Grade Centre.
This will apply all of these settings across the entire module for all assessments (which means you only need to set up your criteria once). You can copy over these settings to other sites when you do a site copy highlighting the ‘Grade centre columns and settings’ option.
For a short video on how to do this follow this link: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/movies/bb91_grade_center_color_code.htm
Go on give it a whirl- and let me know what you think: geraldine.murphy@northampton.ac.uk
There will be some minor updates to Blackboard Learn on the 18th of July 2016. These security updates will involve a slight change to the Turnitin interface. Under Site Tools>Turnitin Assignments, each assignment will be listed with a Delete Assignment link beside it (please see fig1 below).
Clicking this link will delete the entire submission point, all submitted papers and all grading. Please do not use this delete link unless you are absolutely sure you wish to remove the submission point. If you do click this link by mistake, a confirmation box will appear. Click on cancel to retract the request.
Fig1 - Turnitin delete link
