Table of Contents
Overview
The Collaboration tools allow you and your students to have real-time communication sessions using two text-based chat tools: the Chat tool and the Virtual Classroom tool. Two Collaboration sessions are created by default in each Blackboard site: a) a Lecture Hall session, which uses the Virtual Classroom tool and b) an Office Hours session, which uses the Chat tool.
By default, students access these Collaboration sessions by first clicking Communication on the Course Menu and then clicking the Collaboration link.
Although instructors and others with Control Panel access can join a Collaboration session in the same way that students do, instructors should use the Collaboration options in the Control Panel to modify existing collaboration sessions or to add new ones.
Well in advance of your course's first scheduled collaboration session, your students should make sure that they can successfully launch the collaboration tools. These tools require that Windows users install the latest version of the Java plug-in. Computers purchased through the CCI program will already have a Java plug-in installed. However, if the computer was not purchased recently, the plug-in may need to be upgraded.
Troubleshooting
If the collaboration tools will not launch properly on your computer,
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first check to see if your browser has pop-up blocking enabled. You may need to completely disable pop-up blocking in order for the collaboration tools to load successfully. In other words, simply adding "blackboard.unc.edu" to your list of "allowable" sites may not be sufficient.
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check the settings on the Java Plug-in to disable caching. Windows users should go to the Start Menu, select Control Panel, and open the Java Plug-in. From the Java Plug-in window, click the Cache tab. Click the Clear button and then clear the checkbox for Enable Caching. Then click Apply.
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click either of the links on the launch screen to download the plug-in file. Download the file to your computer, and then double-click to open the installer program. Once installation is complete, try opening a collaboration session again.
For further assistance, either call 962-HELP or submit an [ https://www.unc.edu/ar-bin/websub/index.pl ] Online Help Request.
Both the Chat and Virtual Classroom have text-based chat features, and both allow one-to-one private messaging. The instructions below describe how to open and customize the default Office Hours collaboration session that uses the Chat Tool. However, these directions also apply to conducting a chat session using the Virtual Classroom tool.
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Click the Collaboration link in the Control Panel.
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The default Chat session is entitled Office Hours. If you'd like, you can rename the session by clicking the Manage button to the far right of the window. Alternately, you can create a new session by clicking Create Collaboration Session at the top of the Collaboration Sessions window.
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Click the session's Join button. The Collaboration Sessions page is replaced by a Launching Blackboard Chat Tool page. A second Blackboard Chat window will also open, provided that you have a Java Client installed on your computer and your browser has Java enabled.
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The Blackboard Chat window has a toolbar at the top and is divided into a participant list and the message window. You'll notice that messages are added to the chat transcript whenever a participant joins or leaves the session. Also note that you can resize the Chat window, but not the Virtual Classroom window.
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Unlike earlier versions of Blackboard, chat sessions are not archived automatically. If you wish to save a transcript of the chat, click the Record button (circle) to the right of the toolbar. You'll be prompted to name the chat archive.
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Type your message in the Composer field at the bottom of the message area. If you'd like to use a large composition area, you can either maximize the chat window or click Compose. Your message will not display to other chat participants until you click the Send button.
By default, any participant can send a private message to selected participants. Private messages are not included in the chat archives and are not visible by anyone else other than the intended recipient(s). If you want to prevent students from sending private messages, click the Controls button on the chat toolbar. Clear the checkbox for Private Messaging and click OK. Note that instructors, teaching assistants, and other moderators will still be able to exchange private messages, but that students will not be able to respond to any private messages that are sent to them.
The Virtual Classroom features an additional breakouts option, which can be used to launch concurrent sessions in which smaller groups of participants can chat and collaborate. Instructors and students alike can launch breakout sessions, and a single participant can participate in several breakout sessions. Note that currently there is no way to prevent students from launching breakout sessions.
An instructor or teaching assistant will need to click the record archive button (circle button in upper right; when selected, the button is shaded) in the window of an active collaboration session before it will be archived. Archiving begins only at the point that the button is clicked; any messages posted before this point will not be archived.
By default, students are not able to view collaboration archives. Instructors can change this setting only after an archive has been created:
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From the Course Tools section of the site's Control Panel, click Collaboration. The Collaboration Sessions page opens.
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Click the Archives button for the appropriate session. The Session Archives page opens.
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Click the Manage button for the appropriate archive. The Archive Properties window opens.
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Under section 2, Availability to Students, click Yes.
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Click Submit. Click OK to return to the Session Archives page or use the links at the top of the window to navigate to the Collaboration sessions page or to the Control Panel.
In addition to its chat tool, the Virtual Classroom has four additional tools, which are listed in the Classroom Tools menu: Course Map, Whiteboard, Group Browser, and Ask Questions/Question Inbox. With the possible exception of the Ask Questions/Question Inbox tool, each of these tools is lacking one or more features that one could reasonably expect it to have.
The Virtual Classroom's Course Map should work much the same as the site's Course Map feature. While you can use it to display main content and tool areas in the Blackboard site, if you click a link or button in the display area to further navigate or to open an attached file, the other participants will not see these materials. In other words, you can display to the other participants only those items which can be directly accessed from the Course Map item list. Put yet another way, if someone clicks a link or button on the display page, that linked page content will display only to the person who clicked it, not to any other user.
The Virtual Classroom's Whiteboard has a strong, basic set of drawing tools, with options for selecting drawing objects, grouping and upgrouping them, and controlling layering (send to front or back). However, any image or text created outside of the Whiteboard cannot be imported or pasted into it. Consequently, any preparations that you do will need to be done within the Whiteboard itself.
While archiving a session, you can take a snapshot of the Whiteboard. This saves the current slide as a .jpg file, which then will be embedded in that collaboration session's archives.
The Virtual Classroom's Group Browser has a severe limitation: only the web pages for which you enter an address will display to students. In other words, if you click a link on page, that linked page displays only to the person who clicked it, not to any other user. Neither can Web addresses be copied and pasted into the address field. Given these two shortcomings, the tool is extremely difficult to use shared viewing of multiple web pages.
Whiteboard tools cannot be used to annotate a page displayed in the Group Browser, as was the case in earlier versions of Blackboard.
An alternative to asking questions in the main chat window or sending a private message to the instructor(s), students can use Ask Question tool to compose a question and send it to the Question Inbox. Once an instructor replies to a question, both the question and its answer are posted in the main chat window; however, instructors can choose to send a private response to a question.
Collaboration feature access is tied to whether a user is active or passive. By default, all students are active users. Also by default, active users can access any of the Virtual Classroom tools, but passive users can only use the Ask Question tool. You can customize these default settings to specify which tools active and passive users can access and to specify which participants are active and passive users.
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On the toolbar at the top of the Virtual Classroom window, click Controls. A Session Controls window opens.
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There are two columns of checkboxes, which corresponding with tool access for active and passive users. In the Active User column, clear the checkboxes for any tools that you do not which students to access. If you want to later define passive users, you can also specify which tools that they can and cannot use. Note that you cannot give passive users access to a tool that active users cannot use.
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Click OK to put your settings into effect.
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