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Teaching with Blackboard

About Blackboard

Blackboard™ is a course management system used campus-wide at NIU. The system allows faculty to post materials, deliver tests and surveys, hold online discussion and many other course-related functions. All currently-enrolled students and teaching faculty have access to the Blackboard system. We are running Blackboard version 9.1 Service Pack 8, having upgraded the system May 29, 2012. Login to the NIU Blackboard site at: http://webcourses.niu.edu

Blackboard News

Scheduled Blackboard Outage - June 8, 2013

Date posted: 4/18/2012

See What's Better

A significant upgrade is scheduled to be performed to the Blackboard Learn System on June 8, 2013. The upgrade will begin at 12:00 AM and will complete by 11:00 PM. The Blackboard Learn System (http://webcourses.niu.edu) will be UNAVAILABLE during this time.

The latest version of Blackboard Learn, 9.1 Service Pack 11 (SP11), will introduce several new exciting features, including:

  • New Content Editor: Vastly improves the user experience for formatting text, pasting content from Word, and more.
  • Assessment Item Analysis: Provides statistics on overall test performance on individual test questions.
  • Assessment Fill-in-the-Blank Question Enhancement : Fill-in-the-Blank and Fill-in-Multiple-Blanks questions now offers regular expression options for grading answers.
  • My Blackboard: Create your own profile and discover and interact with others in your academic network.
  • Inline Assignment Grading: View, annotate, and grade student-submitted files "inline" without the need to download any files.
  • Retention Center: Identify at-risk students by using pre-configured rules or by creating your own.
  • New Calendar: Sporting a new UI, the new calendar now integrates fully into your courses. Never miss an assignment again.
  • Blackboard Drive: View, edit, and manage your Content System files right from your desktop.

To learn more about the upcoming features, please visit the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center's upgrade page at www.niu.edu/blackboard/upgrade.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the ITS Helpdesk at 815-753-8100 or helpdesk@niu.edu.