Paul
I think the answer actually lies in the database - what Bb allow you to look
for through the software interface is fairly basic (and you as a former CI4
user like me will have noticed, is not even consistently implemented as the
software versions are introduced). All the data which we conceivably might
want to use is in the database (somewhere) - what I am hoping to be able to
initiate soon is a way of tapping into this data to get the information
which we want (need) rather than only that which the software allows you to
get at. However, since there are freely available GUIs for both MySQL and
Oracle databases available, it shouldn't technically be too difficult for Bb
to incorporate these into the system code so that we can search for anything
we wanted. Some examples below :-
Find all courses which are not categorised (and YES - CI4 did let you do
this) !
Search for a user who has been inactive within X days (rather than active
within X days)
Use wildcards in searches
Search for courses with no enrolled users
Search for courses which have been inactive within X days
Search for courses of size above (or below) Y Mb
and so on - all that data MUST be in there since you can see it in various
other screens within the system !!!
Neil
Dr Neil Ringan
Director, Learning Innovation Centre
University of Huddersfield
Queensgate, Huddersfield, HD1 3DH
P +44 (0)1484 47 31 46
F +44 (0)1484 47 21 46
E [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Chin [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 08 November 2001 08:49
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: archiving
Hello David,
Thanks for this useful info, I think I'm going to need it at the end of this
semester! However, isn't the real issue here the problem of properly
stamping modules so we can sort them as we wish, rather than trying to find
work arounds. For example, I was trying to list uncategorised courses the
other day and unless I missed how to do this, I had to manually check each
one. Surely it wouldn't be too technically difficult to set up a search
feature so that we can find, organise and (dare I say it) be able to produce
and export report data on our courses.
Does anyone else have this frustration with managing and reporting on their
courses within Bb?
regards
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: A list to promote discussion amongst MLE Blackboard/Courseinfo
users in UK [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of
David Morrison
Sent: 08 November 2001 00:37
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: archiving
At 3:18 PM +0000 7/11/01, Fiona Littleton wrote:
>Hi again!
>Alot of questions and a phone conversation with someone who had time would
>be great, really great.
>
>Was wondering about best way to move from one semester to the next and one
>year to the next. What does one do?
>
>Archive the old semester courses for next year use? This keeps all content
>but removes users and groups and discussions and virtual chats - correct?
>Create semester 2 courses and not make them visible til next term? How does
>one distinguish between the two semesters? In the code or what? Also what
>about batch enrolling courses to CREATE them - can one do this?
Hello Fiona et al
There is a good article in Blackboard's knowledgebase that goes
through the semester transition issues fairly thoroughly (article
number KB0000000000346). There are a number of other articles that
reference the transition issue. Try putting "semester transition" in
the search box. (BTW, there are a lot of useful articles in the
knowledgebase and elsewhere about administrative and teaching issues.
It's just a shame they are not easily found...)
In the end, one thing the article suggests and what we independently
worked out, is to incorporate some date-specific information in the
courseid. This way, it is clear that a course is current or not, and
you can keep the old ones around if the instructors want them.
In our case, some of the students are in degrees which require
continuous self-evaluation of work done in previous years. As such,
the courses need to remain and be accessible for the entire duration
of their study. On that basis, we are expecting to retain these
courses for several years, and some way to identify older courses was
critical.
The structure we have used for courseids is as follows:
COURSEID.200x.sX.Campus
(e.g.; INFO1010.2001.s2.CCC)
"COURSEID" - this should be the official subject ID, in uppercase -
eg, "INFO101"
"200x" - this is the year that the course is being offered - eg, 2001
"SX" - this will change according to whether the course is offered in
semester or trimester format, may not be there at all if the course
runs all year.
"Campus" - this is an optional field - if the course is being offered
at the main campus then this is not necessary - everywhere else
should have the name of the campus here - eg, "GH", or "CCC".
Note that because of problems with using case-sensitive courseids in
Courseinfo, we make the whole courseid upper case everywhere it is
used.
Regards
David
PS I would be interested to know if case-sensitivity is still a
problem in Bb 5.5. What happens is that we created a course manually
with courseid INFO101.2001.S2, ie, the "S" is upper case. We batch
enrolled students using courseid INFO101.2001.s2, ie, the "s" is
lower case. What happens is that the student is correctly enrolled in
the course, and the instructor can see them. However when the student
clicks on the course in My Blackboard, they get an error saying the
page does not exist. It appears that Courseinfo has recorded the
lower case version in the student's record, having accepted in the
batch enroll that it was a valid course. However, when it is used,
Courseinfo cannot find it.
The consequences of this are quite dire. The student cannot be
unenrolled from the course because it does not exist. They cannot be
enrolled in the course with the proper name because they are already
in it.
We did find a workaround. If the student goes to the course catalogue
and enters the course from there, it will work, because it is using
the proper name of the course.
Needless to say, Blackboard support were less than helpful with this
when reported a couple of months ago as a database corruption issue.
We are still waiting. :-(
--
David Morrison, Systems Specialist
Flexible Learning Administrator and Blackboard Project Manager
Web Development Team, IESD, The University of Newcastle, Australia
E-mail [log in to unmask]
Ph +61 2 49215397 Fax +61 2 49217087
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