Known Issues with the Blackboard System

The following is a list of issues/bugs that we have made Blackboard aware of, which commonly affect Blackboard users.

General Issues

# signs in file names - Blackboard does not fully support special characters in file names and assignment names. When naming files to upload onto the system to complete assignments or via the digital dropbox, please rename them first to remove special characters such as # signs. Since we haven't done careful study as to which characters break the system, please stick to letters, numbers, and underscores ( _ ). Naming a file with certain characters such as # signs will make them irretrievable. Assignments named with special characters like # signs will not function until they are renamed.

Assessment (quiz/test) timeouts - The maximum inactivity period on Blackboard is 3 hours. This inactivity timeout is extended to 3 hours every time you click on a Blackboard link that brings you to a new page. This works even in another tab within the same web browser window. Because assessments commonly take place within the same page, this means that you have a maximum of 3 hours to complete each page of an assessment (less if the assessment has an explicit maximum time set). You may be able to extend this timeout period by clicking on other links/courses inside another browser tab, but we suggest that you do not start an assessment unless you know you have the time to finish it right away.

Issues that affect instructors and TA's

Incomplete Assessments - The total number of incomplete assessments for all current and previous Blackboard courses is 44,467 out of a total of 3,838,992 assessments (about 1%). There are many reasons an assessment might be incomplete, ranging from the assessment timeouts mentioned above, power outages, network outages, scheduled and unscheduled Blackboard downtimes, student computer crashes, student apathy (unwillingness to complete the assessment), and misunderstandings of how assessments work and whether a particular assessment can be resumed. Because of this, we suggest a few tips to mitigate these factors.

  1. Do not use the Force Completion checkbox. Please see Force Completion for more information.
  2. Create an ungraded practice assessment at the beginning of the semester to familiarize students with the process.
  3. Create relatively large question pools, and allow multiple attempt quizzes with random questions.
  4. Create makeup assessments for students who couldn't complete assessments for some technical reason

You can reset assessment attempts from within the course Control Panel.

Gradebook concurrent editing - Every time a gradebook column is loaded, for instance by using the Item Grade List link, Blackboard gives the grader the last saved version of that column. Every time a gradebook column is saved, Blackboard blindly overwrites every single cell in that column to match what the grader entered, regardless of whether the cells were left blank. Blackboard makes no attempt to lock grading sessions to prevent multiple graders from opening the same column simultaneously. If two graders open a column around the same time, then both save the column at different times, the second save will overwrite everything from the first save. If the second grader leaves some cells blank because he's not responsible for grading those people, his save will overwrite the first grader's grades for those cells by erasing them.

There is no simple solution to this problem. Some solutions include:

  • Have all graders and the instructor form a schedule of grading without overlaps so that contention cannot occur.
  • Click on one cell in the gradebook instead of the column's Item Grade List.
  • Designate a master grader who is the only person who uses the gradebook, and have other graders submit grades to him in another method. An example is a spreadsheet on docs.google.com, which does not have any concurrency issues. Please note that there may be security or FERPA issues with using an off-campus resource to store grades.
  • At the beginning of the semester, have your course scheduler request a separate Blackboard course for each discussion/lab so that each TA gets his own gradebook. The TA gradebooks could be merged periodically throughout the semester.

Finding more help:

Additional help can be found through the this support section. All other questions may be directed to blackboard@usc.edu. Problems with your USC Computer Account can be directed to the ITS Customer Support Center at 213.740.5555.

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