Lincoln Memorial University (LMU) uses Blackboard as its Course Management System for online learning. Please review the following information as it will assist you with Blackboard access and will help you become familiar with Blackboard.

Some functions in Blackboard might not work properly in Internet Explorer 9. If you have already downloaded IE 9, you should turn on the Compatibility View when using Blackboard.

We have found that there are some issues with the latest version of Firefox (7.0.1 and above) and with Internet Explorer 9 and the version of Blackboard Learn that we are currently using. We recommend using Internet Explorer 9 in Compatibility View for the best results at this time. We will continue to monitor the situation and will make further recommendations as other options are found.

How to use Compatibility View in Internet Explorer 9

Websites that were designed for earlier versions of Windows Internet Explorer might not display correctly in Internet Explorer 9. However, you can often improve how a website will look by using a feature called Compatibility View.

When you turn on Compatibility View, the website you're viewing will be displayed as if you were using an earlier version of Internet Explorer.

If Internet Explorer recognizes a webpage that isn't compatible, you'll see the Compatibility View button on the Address bar. To turn Compatibility View on, click the Compatibility View button to make the icon change from an outline Picture of the Compatibility View button (off) to a solid color Picture of the Compatibility View button (on).

From now on, whenever you visit this website, it will be displayed in Compatibility View. However, if the website receives updates to display correctly in the current version of Internet Explorer, Compatibility View will automatically turn off.

Accessing Blackboard:

1. Obtaining Your User ID: To obtain your User Name, go to WebAdvisor and select the choice What's My User ID.

2. After obtaining your User Name: Proceed to Blackboard to sign in.

3. Initial Password: For any users created after September 9th, 2011, the temporary password is now set to the first letter of your last name followed by your 6-digit date birth date. Ex., If Jane Doe was born on January 5th, 1985 the password would be d010585.

For users created before September 9th, 2011, the temporary password is initially set to your 6-digit birth date. Ex., If Jane Doe was born on January 5th, 1985 the password would be 010585.

If we do not have your birth date on file, the system randomly generates a pin. To obtain your pin, please call the help desk at 423.869.7411.

To Change Your Blackboard Password:

1) Go to http://lmunet.centertech.com/

2) Provide your Username and initial Password and select Login.

3) Once you are logged in, select the Personal Information from the widget on the left



4) Once you are on the Personal Information screen, select Change Password

5) Provide a new password and click Submit to change the password.

When logged into blackboard, there may be some courses that have not been removed from your Course List or My Courses module.

To modify which courses you see in those lists, click the cog wheel icon next to the minimize and close icon on the module to open the personalize options for those screens.



From there, you can check which courses you would like to see within your modules.

Blackboard has a built-in class email list which includes the instructor(s) and everyone enrolled in the course. Any member of the course can send emails to individuals, groups, or the entire class.

Sending Email

• Enter your course and click the Tools menu.
• Click Send Email.
  
  NOTE: The Send Email feature found on the Tools menu of the Home page may also be used.  If you are enrolled in multiple courses, select the specific course you wish to send email to.

• Select the desired recipients. All Users is the best option to send an email to the entire class.  Individual recipients can be chosen by selecting Single/Select Users.
• The next screen will depend on the option chosen above. If anything other than Select Users was chosen, proceed to step 5.

If Single/Select Users had been selected in step 2, select the recipients in the Items to Select box (multiple users can be selected by clicking, holding the mouse button, and dragging).

Once the desired recipients have been selected, click on the Right Arrow button located between the two white boxes, which will add the selected recipients to the Select Items box. Enter a brief subject in the Subject field.
Enter a message in the Message box.

• If an attachment is desired, click the Attach File button.
• When finished, click Submit.

Instructors may require that assignments be submitted using Blackboard’s Assignment submission tool.  This enables students to submit assignments electronically, eliminating the need for printing. 

Accessing the Assignment

Some instructors may post assignments within the submission tool that need to be downloaded and completed. This depends on the way in which the instructor has configured the assignment. If the assignment had been attached to the tool itself, follow these steps to download it:

1. Locate the content area containing the Assignment tool (e.g. Assignments, Course Materials, etc.) If an Assignment exists, a distinctive icon will appear with the assignment title.
2. Click on the assignment title.
3. If an attached document exists, it will appear next to Assignment Files. Click on the file name to begin the download process. When prompted, choose Save and save the file to your computer (the Desktop is recommended) so you can work on the assignment at a later time.
4. Once the assignment is downloaded, click the Cancel button as no assignment is being submitted as of yet.

Submitting an Assignment

1. Once the finished assignment is ready to submit, enter the content area in which contains the Assignment submission tool resides (e.g. Assignments, Course Materials). Click on the assignment title.
   
2. On the Upload Assignment screen, click on the assignment title.
3. Scroll down to the Attach File area and click on the Browse for Local File button to search for and select a file.
4. Once the file is selected, click the Attach File button.
5. Enter any Comments if desired.
6. Click Submit.

Using Assignment Submission Box

Depending on the instructor’s original directions for completing the assignment, a separate assignment file may not need to be uploaded. In this case, students may enter text directly into the provided Assignment Submission box.
Always check with your instructor if you have any questions about how to submit assignments within your course.

Discussion Boards are available in all courses and are accessible by all students--although not all instructors choose to enable or use them within their course. In order for students to post messages to the discussion board, an instructor must first create a forum. A forum is the term for the individual topics or subject headings within the discussion board. Each forum contains threads (or individual messages) that consist of the original posting and any related replies. Blackboard also allows instructors to create private group discussion boards accessible only to specific users. They operate in the same manner as the general course discussion boards.

Creating a New Thread

If the option is made available by the instructor of the course, students can create a thread. A thread is an individual message that consists of original postings. Any replies that following a thread will be contained inside the thread itself.

1. Enter the course in which the discussion board will be used and click on Tools button in the Course Menu.
2. Find the Discussion Board link.
3. In the Discussion Board area, click on the forum title in which a thread is to be created.
4. In the Forum, click on the Create Thread button near the top.
   
   NOTE: If this button is present, the instructor has elected not to make this feature available to students.
   
   
5. On the Create Thread screen, enter the subject of thread into the Subject field and enter the body of the thread into the Message field.
6. When finished, scroll down to the bottom and click Submit. The thread can also be saved as a draft by clicking Save Draft.  Draft copies can be retrieved, edited, and submitted at a later time (see section entitled Retrieving Draft Posts).
7. Once the thread has been submitted, it will appear in the forum.

Replying to an Existing Thread

1. Enter the Discussion Board area and click on the forum title in which a reply is to be posted.
2. Locate the thread that a reply is to be added and click on the thread title.
3. In the Thread Detail screen, click on the Reply button
4. On the Reply screen, the title will be automatically filled with the title of the main thread. This can be changed, however this is not recommended. The body of the reply should be added to the Message box.
5. When finished, scroll down to the bottom and click Submit. The thread can also be saved as a draft by clicking Save Draft. Draft copies can be retrieved, edited, and submitted at a later time (see section entitled Retrieving Draft Posts).
6. The main thread (known as the parent post) will appear at the top of the Thread Details screen while the reply posts (known as children posts) will appear below the main thread and indented.

Retrieving and Submitting Draft Posts

1. Enter the discussion board forum in which a draft post was saved (Tools > Discussion Board > [Forum Name]).
2. In the appropriate forum, hover over the Display menu and select Drafts Only.
3. If draft posts are present, click on a thread title to open and edit that thread.
4. To edit the post, click on the Edit button. To remove the post, click Delete.
5. If the post is now being edited, click Submit when finished to post the thread to the forum. Click Save as Draft to return back to the thread at a later time.

Collecting and Viewing Multiple Threads

1. Enter the forum in which multiple threads are to be collected.
2. Check the boxes of the threads to be collected. To select all visible threads, check the box in the heading area, next to the red flag indicator.
   
   NOTE: The Select All check box will only select threads that are visible on the screen. To change the number of threads displayed on one page, click on the Edit Paging button and change the number to a desired value.
   
   
3. Once the threads have been selected, click on the Collect button.
4. The Collection screen will now display the selected threads in chronological order, starting with the newest. Sorting options can be changed using the options in the Sort By/Order menus at the top of the Collection screen. 

The grading area in Blackboard provides quick access for students to check grades and monitor progress in a given course. Keep in mind, not all instructors utilize the Blackboard grading feature.

Method #1

1. On the Bb Home page, click on the View Grades link in the Tools module.
   
2. From the list of My Courses/Organizations, select a course to view that course’s grades.

Method #2

1. In a course, click on Tools in the Course Menu.
2. Click on My Grades.

You may attempt to submit an assignment and receive an error message with a long error id number and a message telling you to contact the System Administrator. This is probably caused by the name of the file containing some character other than letters, numbers, underscores or hyphens. Rename the file with a shorter name with no special characters (no commas, extra periods, pound signs (#) or other non-letter, non-numeric characters). If this does not work, then empty the browser cache (Internet Explorer: Tools, Delete Browsing History, delete temporary internet files; or Firefox: Tools, Clear Private Data, make sure Cache is checked) and submit the file again.

This type of message will appear differently for Macintosh and for Windows users, but the meaning is the same. You may click the "Trust", "Accept" or "Run" button; the applet referred to in the message is actually a third-party product used by Blackboard. Note: If you click the "Show Details/Certificate" button and then check the "Always trust these certificates" option, this message should never re-appear.

Additionally, if you try to use the Virtual Classroom or Chat collaboration tools and receive a warning message asking whether you want to accept a certificate from the website "lmunet.centertech.com," you may also click the "Trust" button (or click the "Show certificate" button and check the "Always" option).

After you have browsed for a file, be sure to click the Attach File button. A file must be attached after it has been selected.

The filename probably contains an invalid character which must be removed. When naming your files, refer to following tips:

• Make files easy to identify by using a naming format similar to the following: JohnDoe_BUS210.doc
• Keep file names short. Use only letters and numbers in the document file name. Avoid using spaces and any special characters as these can often times make the file inaccessible.

When a user of Internet Explorer clicks on a link for a document in Internet Explorer, they see a pop-up blocker (or a yellow message bar). If they agree to enable the download, they're returned to the course home page, and so can't download the file unless they return to the content area page and try again. This results from a security setting in IE and can be changed on a per-user/per-system basis.

1. Go to Tools->Internet Options->Security->Internet->Custom Level
2. Scroll down to the Downloads section
3. Select the Users option
4. Set Downloads->Automatic prompting for file downloads -> Enable.
5. Set Downloads->File Download -> Enable.
6. Click OK.

Yes—only if the assignment is set to allow multiple attempts. If it is not configured this way, contact your instructor to see if s/he will be willing to clear your attempt so you can re-submit.

This is actually a feature, although it does catch many people by surprise. If you look down the left-hand side of the Announcements area, you will see a small tab sticking out. This is the "Show/Hide Menus" tab, and if you click on it, the course menus will reappear. On occasion, this tab seems to get accidentally clicked into the "Hide" state. The point of this feature is that you can collapse the left-hand menus to get more room on the screen for the material you are looking at.

Getting Started In Your Courses:

• The Welcome page displays a list of courses entitled My Courses. All courses you are currently enrolled will be displayed in this area.
• Click on the course link you wish to enter.
• First take time to review announcements and faculty contact information.
• Next explore the additional content areas in the left navigation bar.
• If you are not sure of how to begin work in your course, send your instructor a message.
• If you are experiencing difficulty logging into Blackboard, contact the Help Desk and let them know the issue are experiencing and we will gladly assist in any way possible.

This has always been a problem, even with previous versions of Blackboard. The issue is more prevalent when copying and pasting from Office 2007 and 2010 programs like Word. There is a lot of background "code" that is copied from a Word 2007 file that when pasted into any web-based application, like Blackboard, it can cause many, many problems. It can cause issues that you never would have thought would be related to that. Follow the instructions below to copy and paste your text without copying over the code. (This is even better than saving your Word file as a text file. Even when you save it as a text file you still bring some coding over with it, and this will also give you a second file on your computer which could get confusing. The method below is better.)

1. Copy the text in Word that you want in Blackboard.
2. Open Notepad. (Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Notepad)
3. Paste into Notepad. (Don't worry about what it looks like.)
4. Click on Edit and then Select All (In Notepad).
5. Click on Edit and then Copy (In Notepad).
6. Go to your course in Blackboard where you want the text and paste.
7. Format the text as needed within Blackboard.

To avoid these issues it is suggested to use Mozilla Firefox http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ie.html or change to the compatibility mode in IE8 (Tools > Compatibility View Settings > Check 'Display all websites in Compatibility View' > Close. You will need to close IE8 and reopen the browser before the change takes effect.)

When you enter the forum, be sure you are clicking on the forum title and not the number value for “Unread.” Unread posts will only display those threads which you have not read, excluding any threads you have posted.