Northern Illinois University

Teaching with Blackboard

Scholar


How do I add a bookmark using the bookmark form?

This form lets you add a bookmark to your Scholar Bookmarks collection, as well as provide additional information about the resource and classify it in whatever way that works for you.  Others can use your information and classifications to help them in their own research and studies. You can also add bookmarks to Scholar by importing bookmarks from your browser or other social bookmarking services.

Also, installing the Scholar bookmarklet in your browser (found in Settings in Scholar), will allow you to add web sites to your Scholar bookmarks directly from your browser, as you find them on the World Wide Web.

The fields on the Add a Bookmark form and how to use them are:

Bookmark Name: Enter the title of the web page you want to bookmark.

URL: Enter the web address of the web page you want to bookmark.

Description: Provide notes about or a description of the web page you want to bookmark.

Tags: Tags are single words or short phrases that are meaningful to you to classify a bookmark. Enter tags separated by spaces, and if you want to use a phrase, put it in quotation marks. For example, you might tag a web page about King Arthur with England "King Arthur" literature.

Discipline Tag(s): Scholar includes a comprehensive list of Disciplines. Select one or more Discipline Tags that are appropriate for your bookmark from the drop-down list of Discipline Tags. You can also just start typing the name of a discipline and Scholar will prompt you with valid Discipline Tags from the list.

Course Tag(s): You can tag resources by course, as well. Scholar will provide a list of Blackboard courses in which you are currently enrolled. Select one or more Course Tags that are appropriate for your bookmarks from the drop-down list of Course Tags. You can also just start typing the name of one of your courses and Scholar will prompt you with the Course Titles of your list of Course Tags. Users can only use Course Tags from courses they are enrolled in.

Status Public/Private: By default all bookmarks are publicly viewable. Selecting private makes a bookmark viewable only by you; other users cannot see your private bookmarks.  If you set the Status of a bookmark to Private, a "lock" icon will appear next to that bookmark in your My Bookmarks view.


What is the difference between a basic and advanced search?

BASIC SEARCH 

Enter any search terms in the Search Bookmarks field and click the Search button. Basic Search will search for the keyword in the Title, Description, or Tags of bookmarks. You can also create more complex searches by entering complex queries using the Scholar Search Syntax.

ADVANCED SEARCH

Advanced Search provides a more detailed set of parameters so you can perform more focused searches and get relevant results. Advanced Search allows you to search all of Scholar's collection by one or any combination of the following eight fields:

  • Keywords: searches for any term in the Title, Description or Tags of bookmarks
  • Tags: searches for any term in the Tags field of bookmarks
  • Discipline Tags: searches for any of the valid Disciplines. You can select from the drop-down list or from the auto-complete list as you type. Discipline Tags that Scholar doesn't recognize will be ignored.
  • Course Tags: searches for any of your Course Tags. You can select from the drop-down list or from the auto-complete list as you type. Course Tags that Scholar doesn't recognize or which you do not have access to will be ignored.
  • Institution: searches for any bookmarks added by users who have Blackboard Learning System accounts at the selected institutions. You can select from the drop-down list or from the auto-complete list as you type. Institutions that Scholar doesn't recognize will be ignored.
  • User Name: searches for any bookmarks added by users with the entered username. Must be a Scholar username, not a Blackboard username.
  • User Role: searches for any bookmarks added by a user with a specific role. Role is determined based on a user's enrollments in the Blackboard Learning System.
  • User's Highest Degree: searches for any bookmarks added by user's who have achieved the selected degree. Degree is set in the user's profile.

The first four criteria are displayed on the form by default. Click on the "Add Criteria" button to add any of the last four criteria.

By default all terms within a field are joined by an AND operator and all fields are joined with an AND operator. To construct statements with an OR operator, click the "Add an OR Statement" button.

Any search can be saved by providing a name for the search in the Save Search as field and then selecting Save and Search or Save. You can read more about Saving a Search or about the Scholar Search Syntax.


How can I customize My Scholar Home and Scholar Course Home pages?

My Scholar Home 

The "My Scholar Home" page is your own personal, customizable starting point for Scholar. You can always get back to your My Scholar Home from anyplace in Scholar by clicking on the Scholar logo in the upper left of the page.

Since the My Scholar Home page is displayed when you log into Scholar, you can put the Scholar information that's most important to you on the My Scholar Home page. Your personal Tag Cloud automatically appears on the My Scholar Home page, and dynamically updating "Streams" can appear on My Scholar Home. A Stream is a quick view into the results from a set of saved search criteria. When you create your Scholar account, Scholar adds two Streams -- All Bookmarks and My Bookmarks -- to your My Scholar Home page automatically.

You can create your own custom Streams to add to your personal My Scholar Home page as well. For example, suppose you know your classmate, Mary Smith, always finds great resources about physics. You could create a Stream that will show you the most recent bookmarks added by "msmith" and tagged with "physics." Then every time you log into Scholar, you'll see these results on your personalized My Scholar Home page. 

Scholar Course Home

Each course in the Blackboard Learning System can have its own Scholar Course Home page. The Scholar Course Home is similar to My Scholar Home, except it is accessible by all members of the course. Faculty Members can add Streams to the Scholar Course Home for their course, just like with My Scholar Home. (Students in a course cannot add or remove Streams from Scholar Course Home pages.)

Adding Streams

To add a Stream from an existing Saved Search:

  • Click on the Add a Stream button on the My Scholar Home page or the Scholar Course Home page
  • Select a Saved Search from the list of Saved Searches
  • Choose how many results (1 to 25) from the Saved Search to display in your Stream
  • Click Save

The stream will now appear on your personalized My Scholar Home page. You can drag and drop the Stream into a new position on the page where it's most useful for you. A stream is a saved search which is continually updated. Each time you access your Scholar account you will see the most recent resources that meet your saved search criteria - helping you get to the most relevant and valuable information as quickly as possible. 

To add a Stream from a new Search:

  • Click on the Add a Stream button on the My Scholar Home page or the Scholar Course Home page
  • Click on Start New Search
  • Complete the Advanced Search form with the desired criteria and a name for the search. (See more about searching in Scholar.)
  • Click Save on the Advanced Search form.
  • Click the Scholar logo in the upper left to return to the My Scholar Home page. (If you started from a Scholar Course Home page, you can click the "Course" link in the upper right to return to your Scholar Course Home.)
  • Click on the Add a Stream button on the My Scholar Home page or the Scholar Course Home page
  • Select the newly created Saved Search from the list of Saved Searches
  • Choose how many results (1 to 25) from the Saved Search to display in your Stream
  • Click Save

Removing Streams

  • Simply click the close button (an "X")  in the upper right corner of the Stream that you want to remove. If you remove a Stream, the Saved Search is not removed. You can easily add it back if you accidentally remove a Stream by just clicking on the Add a Stream button and select the Saved Search again.

Moving/Reordering Streams

  • Use the "handle" in the upper right corner of the stream module box to drag the module to the place on the My Scholar Home that you want it!

All answers to FAQs provided by the Scholar Wiki: http://wiki.scholar.com


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Last Updated: 4/23/2008