The Questions and Answers in detail: If you find that an important question you have about Blackboard is not covered in this document, please let us know.
The Questions and Answers in detail: A: Point your browser to the
Blackboard server at
http://bb.hunter.cuny.edu/
Click the Login button, then enter your Blackboard User Name and Password in the dialog box that appears.
You will then see a page with a listing of all Blackboard courses for which you are currently registered as well as recent announcements and other tools and resources. Click on any of the courses to enter that Blackboard site.
Note: Your UIC NetID is only the first part of your UIC email address. For example, if your UIC email address is jdoe1@uic.edu, then your NetID is jdoe1.
Your professor may give you the complete URL for your course, such as
http://courseinfo.uic.edu/courses/1/DistEd101/
(where DistEd101 would be replaced by your course rubric and number).
In this case, simply enter the URL, then log in with your Blackboard User Name and
Password. Use your UIC NetID as username and the last 8 digits of your SSN as your initial
password.
Alternatively, from the main Blackboard gateway
http://bb.hunter.cuny.edu/
click Course Catalog to see a listing of colleges and departments. Find your
college/department, then click on your course.
If you are not enrolled in a class using Blackboard and want to get a glimpse of
some course site, try logging by pressing 
or as a guest through your account. This
will get you to the course's front page, while other areas of the site may or may not be
accessible to you, depending on the instructor's preferences.
A: You have to enter your USERNAME
and PASSWORD
USERNAME: First Letter from your First Name then First Letter from your
Last Name and finally last 4 digits of SS#
Ex.: Ann Johnson, Social Security#: 123-55-1111
USERNAME will be AJ1111.
PASSWORD: Full Year of Birth(4 digits), Month(2 digits), Day(2 digits)
Ex.: 1977 Year at March 7 - Day of Birth
PASSWORD will be 19750307.
Please, goto http://bb.hunter.cuny.edu/ press Login Button and
enter your USERNAME and PASSWORD.
If you forget your password, you should contact your instructor, who can reset your
Blackboard password for you. Also you can go here: 'Forgot your password'
A: In Tools Choose Personal
Information in Blackboard, and then Change Password. At this form, enter your
new password twice, then click 
. Once you have changed your password, this will affect all
of your courses that use Blackboard CourseInfo.
A: Make sure you are using the proper username and password. The password is case-sensitive. If it is still not working, contact your instructor(s) and ask them to reset your password, then change it after logging in.
If you are getting a message that a connection with the server could not be
established, the server might be down. Call HC Network Operations at ???? to have
the server checked/restarted.
A: Blackboard gives full access to each site only to those enrolled in the respective course. If you entered another course site, you are visiting it as a guest with very limited access.
To see exactly what courses you are currently enrolled in, go to
http://bb.hunter.cuny.edu/
Click the Login button and enter your Blackboard Username and Password. The page that
appears will have a listing of all the courses in which you are currently enrolled. If you
think you should be enrolled in a certain course but that course does not appear in the
list, see your instructor or TA to be added to the course.
Q: I am behind a firewall. How do I access Blackboard CourseInfo?
A: This is no longer an issue.
Blackboard Blackboard now responds at the default web port 80, which firewalls do
not block out.
A:Yes, Blackboard has a guest access feature, allowing every user on the system to enter all other course sites as guest with limited access.
Instructors can configure how much a guest user can see of their site. You will never be able to access Communications and Student Tools, nor take Quizzes or Surveys.
Even users without any account on the system can enter any site as guest, by simply
pressing 
and then at http://bb.hunter.cuny.edu/ .
Q: What kind of browser do I need to use Blackboard CourseInfo?
A: For full functionality, you need a browser that supports JavaScript (such as Netscape 3 or 4, or MS Internet Explorer 3 or 4). Your browser must also support frames in order to view Blackboard sites. Furthermore, if your course site uses the Java chat tool, you must be using a 4.x browser or newer. Also see the comment on the text-only interface for Blackboard CourseInfo.
In general, if you are experiencing strange errors while browsing web pages and you are
using an old browser (version 3.x or earlier), it is probably a good idea to upgrade your
web browser.
Download
the latest Netscape Browser
Download
the latest Internet Explorer Browser
A: Most pages in Blackboard
are accessible via a text-only interface, so even older browsers and disabled users can
participate in Blackboard. It depends on the type of files your instructor uploaded
whether you can see all course documents this way. You will find the text-only option in
the navigation frame if you wish to use it for improved download speed. If you are using a
text-only browser to access Blackboard, go to http://courseInfo.uic.edu/bin/textonly_gateway_classic.pl
directly.
A: Students experiencing technical problems should consult their instructor or teaching assistant for the course for all Blackboard CourseInfo-related problems.
If you have a serious problem with Blackboard CourseInfo, make sure to tell your instructor the following details:
Your instructor can then contact the HC Blackboard administrators with these details,
thus giving us a basis for troubleshooting the issue.
A: Make sure you are using a modern browser (level 4 or higher). Older browsers do not support http-uploading. Some ISPs also disallow file-uploading (switch!).
Avoid spaces in your filenames and keep your filenames reasonably short (under 20
characters). Obviously, special characters such as forward slashes or colons cannot be
used in filenames on the web, as they serve to separate directories on some operating
systems. Tip: stick to letters, numbers, and underscores, and you will never have
trouble.
A: In Dropbox or Discussionboard
click the Browse button. Select a file from your hard disk. (In Netscape you will
need to look for Files of type: All Files (*.*) to see more than just HTML files).
Note: The filename should not contain spaces or special characters, be under 20
characters in length, and have the proper three-letter extension indicating the file's MIME-type,
so others can open it.
When your browser receives a file from the webserver that it does not have the built-in
functionality to handle, it opens it in a plug-in (or in an external "helper
application") based on the file's "MIME-type". When the file does not have
the proper three-letter extension, the server cannot determine the MIME-type and may not
handle the file properly. The server may also not be configured to handle your kind of
file, if it is an uncommon type (check the list of
configured types). You can zip/stuff it to avoid this problem, but then the others
also need to have an archiving utility (e.g. WinZIP, Stuffit) to open it.
A: If the file does not open automatically (i.e. if you get a dialogue-box saying that your browser does not know what to do with this kind of file), simply save it to your hard drive. Then try opening it in various applications, so next time you get this type of file, you know what application to pick in the browser's dialogue box. Use this method in particular if the file does not have the proper three-letter DOS-extension.
If your browser does not offer you the saving option, but launches some application
that cannot properly open the file, simply right-click the link to the file that
Blackboard provides at the top and choose "Save Target/Link As..."
Q: I try to take a quiz or survey but it says "Sorry...you already took this assessment on..."
A: If you look at a survey or a quiz, then press your browser's back button, or you start to take the quiz and do not submit it for whatever reason, the next time you try to take this quiz you will get a message from the Blackboard server
Sorry...you already took this assessment on ...
For fairness reasons, you are typically only allowed to take a quiz once and you are not allowed to see a quiz before taking it for credit.
If you feel you are getting this message incorrectly, contact your instructor or T.A.,
giving all pertinent details. If indeed you are getting this message in error, your
instructor can reset your quiz attempt and you can take the quiz again. Also see the
comments under internal
server error for important info!
Note: All transactions on Blackboard are logged. All page requests, times and data
submitted are recorded and searchable.
A: Situation: you successfully took
a quiz and got a grade, but later notice that your grade is gone and only an exclamation
mark shows up under Check Grades. This happens when the quiz is set to allow
multiple submissions and you later look at it again without submitting it, e.g. because
you want to print it. This will establish a new attempt at the quiz, erasing all your
previous answers! To see your submitted quiz and compare your answers, click on your grade
within Check Grades instead - that is safe.
Q: I tried using the mass-email feature and got an error message.
A: You get an error if one or more
of the addresses you are trying to send to is invalid. This may be because someone did not
activate their HC E-mail-account yet, which they need to do right away to be reachable.
It could also be that the user has changed his email-setting in Blackboard to point
to a private email-account and has specified a wrong address, or the account is not
working properly. Try contacting them via the discussionboard and alert them to the
problem.
Q: I tried to upload a file to the Student Dropbox but I got an error "The server encountered an internal error..."
A: Make sure the name of the file
you are uploading is not too long (shorter than 20 characters) and contains no spaces. If
the problem persists, email your instructor with the exact time the problem occurred, what
type of file you were uploading, and what type and version of browser you are using, and
what ISP.
Q: I try to access a page but I get an error "HTTP/1.1 ... The server encountered an internal error ... "
A: If this happened when you were trying to submit a quiz, chances are you are using Netscape and inadvertently re-loaded the quiz, causing the submission to fail. Netscape re-loads a page when re-sizing the browser window, viewing the page source, or trying to print or save the page. Thus you must not do those when taking quizzes, or simply use MS Internet Explorer (but still avoid reloading!).
If you were in the middle of taking a quiz or survey, inform your instructor via email as soon as possible. Your instructor can clear your quiz attempt and allow you to take the quiz again.
You may also have been accessing a page while the server was temporarily down. If you
think the Blackboard server is down, please check on the web at http://www. . This webpage has a listing of
all important servers and services at UIC, and their current status. If you see that the
Blackboard machine reported as being "down" please contact the ACCC
Network Operations Desk (available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) at 312-413-8080 (option
2). They will look into the problem, resolve it, or contact the appropriate ACCC/ITL
support personnel, if necessary.
Last updated: April 15, 2001 Training Recource Center