User Profile Pictures (Avatars) in Blackboard

An increasing number of instructors and students are interested in adding a picture of themselves to their Blackboard personal information. Blackboard refers to such images as avatars and, when they are used, your picture will appear next to your name in notifications, journals, discussions, blogs, wikis, and other areas in a Blackboard course. Blackboard provides a short video tutorial, Adding an Avatar, that demonstrates how to add an image to your Blackboard profile.

Online Student Blackboard Training

Instructors, are you tired of hearing about Blackboard technology issues from your students? If so, you may want to instruct learners to self-enroll in UHCL's online Blackboard training for students. The short, self-paced course will introduce learners to our Blackboard system. Students will learn how to use key Blackboard features/tools and how to avoid technical issues while learning in Blackboard. Some faculty even require students to submit a copy of their training completion certificate as a component of their course orientation activities, especially in 100% online classes. For more information about this optional training offering for learners, please contact the Support Center.

Course Evaluation Dates

Fall 2021 Online Course Evaluation Dates 

Session	Session Begin/End	Online Evaluations Begin/End
Regular Academic Session (1)	08/23/2021 12:00:00 AM - 12/04/2021 12:00:00 AM	11/20/2021 12:00:00 AM - 12/04/2021 11:59 PM
Eight Week - First (8W1)	08/23/2021   12:00:00 AM - 10/16/2021 12:00:00 AM	10/02/2021   12:00:00 AM - 10/09/2021 11:59 PM
Eight Week - Second (8W2)	10/18/2021   12:00:00 AM-12/11/2021 12:00:00 AM	11/27/2021   12:00:00 AM - 12/04/2021 11:59 PM

As a reminder, faculty and students can all see the evaluation dates for the current semester by login into UHCL's Online Course Evaluation system.

Providing Textbook Information in Blackboard

During the Spring 2018 semester, UCT was advised by the university's business office that the use of the Blackboard tool that displayed textbook information (including suggested retail prices) placed the university in violation of their contract with Barnes & Noble, who operate the university bookstore. As a result, our Blackboard system administrators were required to disable that feature in our system.

If you would like to provide students with an image of the textbook and its ISBN, you can photograph/scan its cover and then create an Item in Blackboard that contains a thumbnail of the saved image and the ISBN. We have created a handout about this workaround, called Adding a Textbook Information Item, and it is available on our team's Faculty Blackboard Support web page. If you need additional assistance regarding this matter, please contact the Support Center or your designated Instructional Designer and we'll be happy to help.

E-Services/PeopleSoft Support Reminder

UCT's Blackboard support staff would like to remind all instructors that our Blackboard team has no access to E-Services/PeopleSoft. Although our Instructional Designers can help you with many Blackboard and other technical issues, we are unable to provide assistance with anything related to E-Services/PeopleSoft.

Each college should have personnel trained to support this effort and they should be your first point of contact regarding E-Services/PeopleSoft questions. Please contact the Associate Dean’s office for your college for more information.

•    BUS: 281-283-3111
•    COE: 281-283-3620
•    CSE: 281-283-3715
•    HSH: 281-283-3400

The backup support for E-Services/PeopleSoft inquiries will be the Office of Academic Records (OAR)/Office of the Registrar and the Student Enrollment Center (SEC).  These offices will be your contact for technical difficulties and other related assistance as needed. You may contact the OAR at 281-283-2525 and can reach the SEC at 281-283-2722.

Adding an Academic Support Link

You can readily create a left menu item that will take students to the university’s web page containing information about and links to Academic Support office. The addition of this link to your Blackboard course provides students with ready access to the Library, Math Center, Writing Center, and Career Services. All newly created “from scratch” Blackboard master courses automatically include this item. However, the vast majority of existing Blackboard offerings do not have this valuable link. Please review the document, Adding an Academic Support Link, for instructions. If you require additional assistance, remember that you can always contact your designated Instructional Designer (ID) directly or contact the Support Center to have a help ticket created and assigned to your ID.

Broken Course Evaluation Links

The Support Center and UCT’s Course Development & Support Team have received numerous reports that some Course Evaluation links in Blackboard are no longer working.

UHCL changed the location (URL) of the course evaluation tool in 2016 and, although the old links to the online evaluation tool may be working through a process known as a “re-direct,” they will eventually stop functioning. We recommend that all instructors who use the online course evaluation tool in their Blackboard classes update to the link in their courses new URL as soon as possible to ensure student access to the course evaluation tool. The instructions on how to do so (Editing a Course Evaluation Link) begin on page 2 of the handout, Adding or Editing a Course Evaluation Link.

If you have any questions about this procedure, please contact the Support Center and your inquiry will be routed to your designated Instructional Designer (ID) or the next available member of our Course Development & Support Team. You may reach the Support Center at 281-283-2828 or SupportCenter@uhcl.edu.