Extended closures or one-time class cancellations can occur for a variety of reasons: inclement weather, natural disaster, unexpected events, etc. It is important to have a contingency plan which will help you continue course work successfully. Blackboard provides faculty with a multitude of tools to assist with keeping courses live.
All official UAMS courses have a course shell in Blackboard. If you are not using Blackboard for your class, please make your Blackboard course available and inform students about the Blackboard login process.
Please consider the following strategies utilizing Blackboard:
1. Communicate with your Students.
The easiest way to communicate with the entire class is to post an announcement. Please make sure you check the “send a copy of this announcement immediately” box in the web announcement options. Students will receive the announcement in their UAMS email.
For future terms, consider including a statement in your syllabus about Blackboard use in case of an emergency.
2. Continue class lectures and meetings with Class for Zoom.
Class for Zoom is a web conferencing tool available to all Blackboard courses. It allows you to live stream to your students (synchronously), record lectures (asynchronously), conduct office hours, and live proctor virtual exams.
Important: Class for Zoom requires a Zoom License to record or host a session longer than 40 minutes. To get a Zoom license please fill out the Zoom License Request Form. It can take one to two business days for the license to be granted.
3. Other useful tools you might consider.
You add content and enhance asynchronous course activity by using discussion boards, assignments, and tests.
There are several options for adding content to your course. These step-by-step guides will show you how to create documents, folders, learning modules, and weblinks, as well as how to upload files.
Use discussion boards to engage students on the topics you cover or to post reviews and answers to important questions.
With assignments, you can enable students to submit course work. This will enable you to easily access each submission, grade it, and provide feedback. SafeAssign, a plagiarism prevention tool, is available to use with Blackboard assignments.
With tests, you can assess your students. Please build your questions in Pools, build your test, and deploy it for students.
For high stake exams, you can increase the integrity of your online test by using Respondus LockDown Browser (RLDB) or Respondus Monitor.
RLDB locks down student computers during an exam. It discourages students from opening windows or using copy/paste during the exam.
Respondus Monitor is a virtual proctoring tool that records students during the exam and flags suspicious activity for the instructors to review.
Instructor Training Webinars for Respondus
4. Training & Support
Our Training Schedule lists currently offered sessions. We also offer customized training for individuals or groups by request. Please contact BlackboardHelp@uams.edu to RSVP.
For faculty support please contact us at BlackboardHelp@uams.edu.
For student technical support please contact IT Help Desk at (501) 686–8555.
Additional Resources
Thank you,
The eLearning Team
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