email and blackboard

As a tutor you can use Blackboard to send emails directly to your students/teaching assistants and other tutors on a module. These messages will be delivered to their QMU email address.

When you send an email from Blackboard, you will automatically receive a copy of the email you have sent from Blackboard in your QMU email.

The email that you send from Blackboard will show you as the author of the email. The name of the recipient will be the name of your module ie NM237. If an email is to an individual student or group of students, they will not be identified as the recipient.

Recipients can respond to your emails sent from Blackboard. A response to your email in Blackboard will be sent to your QMU email. It will not be sent to Blackboard.

For further information, contact hub@qmu.ac.uk.

In the default module template, you have a menu item called ‘send email’. This means that students can use this tool to email other students and tutors. You may wish to hide this tool from students. If hidden, you can still access the email functionality as a tutor from the Course Tools in the Control Panel.

Removing files from your QMU desktop or network space

In workshop 1, we explain how you can download files from WebCT to your desktop or network area at QMU. Then you can upload the amended files to the Hub (Blackboard), if appropriate.

Don't forget to remove your files from your desktop or network area once you have uploaded them into Blackboard.

Thanks

Announcements and teaching assistants

Can a teaching assistant send announcements?

Yes all instructors and teaching assistants can send announcements.

Instructors and teaching assistants can delete all announcements including those posted by others.

Modules in the hub for academic year 2012 – 2013

When academic staff log into the Hub, they will see all their modules for the next academic year where they are module co-ordinator. Please can you check that you have access to the correct modules and inform the school office, if corrections need to be made.

Don’t forget to add colleagues to your modules. Go to course tools/users and groups/users and add your colleagues as instructors or teaching assistants.

Getting files out of WebCT

One of the most important questions that tutors will have when planning to move their materials from WebCT to The Hub is "How do I get my files out of WebCT?" There are a number of options below which are covered in Workshop 1. Whichever method you use it is probably worthwhile creating a folder on your desktop which you can use as a transition area to store and sort files between WebCT and the Hub.

In WebCT all files are stored in the File Manager (which can be found in the Designer tools in the Build tab). The WEBDAV function in WebCT allows you to open the File Manager as a web folder, in turn allowing you to drag and drop files from there to another area such a folder that you have set up on your desktop (as suggested above). The following video shows you how to access the WEBDAV function from the file manager: WEBDAV video
Please note that the WEBDAV functionality is only accessible from a PC - it will not work in thin-client or if using the remote desktop.

You can also open files and save them directly from a WebCT content area by clicking on them (in Teach tab or Student View) or in the Build tab by clicking the Preview option in the drop-down contextual menu next to the file name.

Module areas in the Hub also contain a File Manager and multiple files can be uploaded to it using a drag and drop function (Files>Upload>Upload Files>Multiple Files). Adding files and folders directly to the File Manager in your Hub module can be quick and easy if you use the drag and drop functionality but it is important to note that the files are then only stored in the File Manager - they are not automatically displayed to the students on a content area. This method would work best if you wanted to organise the files and folders in your Hub File Manager and then recreate the same structure on the content area. The drag and drop functionality means that you can easily get all the files you need into your module file manager - you just need to then recreate the folders on a content area then link to the files that have been uploaded to the File Manager using Build Content>File>Browse Course, rather than the Browse>My Computer option. This video will show you how to add files directly to the file manager: Adding Files to the File Manager

In Hub modules there is however a function which allows a tutor to upload a ZIP file of folders to a Content area and those folders and their contents (including sub folders, files, etc) will be extracted and displayed on a Hub content area in exactly the same structure as they were zipped up. This allows you to create the folder structure for your area in advance, outside the Hub and populate it with the relevant files from WebCT. You then just ZIP it all up and upload to the Hub content area. The advantage of this method is that the files and folders are automatically displayed on a content area, as opposed to moving them to the File Manager first. The tool is available from any content area: Build Content>Document Package.

Alternatively you could just create your folders on your Hub module area and upload files manually to them as required.