Incomplete Grades

Blackboard courses will be unavailable after June 30, 2009. It is important that you download any gradebooks for classes where students are working to complete assignments. Instructors are responsible to communicate to students how they are to submit final assignments to you.

Courses with Incompletes - Summer 08, Fall 08 & Spring 09

Remember that our use of Bb will end on June 30, 2009. This means that if you have classes with incompletes then you must download your gradebook as a record of course activity. You might also want to download the student submissions and copy/print discussion postings. After 6/30/09 there will be no opportunity to recover your course materials.

Bb Slow to Respond - holiday weekend

Several faculty reported Bb was slow to show Gradebook screens or to open the textboxes for new Announcements. These problems have been reported to the Help Desk.

Early D2L Support Materials

If you are curious about d2l, checkout the early training materials posted at http://wserver.scc.losrios.edu/de/d2l/.

This site includes an RSS feed so you can keep up with new postings in iTunes or with a News Reader.

Bb Sunset Timeframe

Blackboard will continue to be used for classes during Fall 2008 and Spring 2009. Beginning Summer 2009 Desire2Learn will be the learning management system on campus.

The schedule for training SCC faculty is being finalized and will be shared first with the "What's New with Desire2Learn" Flex participants and then via campus email to all faculty. This blog will also have the posted schedule for training.

Add students to your class - use this request form

Bb courses from May 2008 were added to our database. Faculty use their Bb login to access a list of Bb courses and then type in the 5-digit roster/section numbers so we can link students to the right Bb course.

After you make the edits in this database, David Martin, Educational Media Design Specialist, will make the connections manually the following day.

SCC Bb Request Process - Faculty Login

Quiz View Error for faculty

Day two of classes I heard from several faculty about an error message as they try to view or preview a quiz. Luckily Tami Cheshire was in my office and said "Oh, yes. But students can see the quiz and their responses are recorded." That tip allowed me to test a quiz from the student point of view and I confirmed that students were successful in seeing a quiz, completing the quiz and seeing the results/feedback.

Bb - Faculty Can Clean Up Tests & Pools - pre summer

Important dates for Bb Maintenance
Pre-Summer 2008 semester:

• Bb Fall 2008 Enroll Roster to Existing Bb Course Request HTML Form
  
  
• All SCC Bb course status is changed to Unavailable (students will not see a course link)
  
• Bb Online for faculty May 30 to June 6, 2008 to delete OLD tests and OLD pools
  
• Bb Online for faculty June 7, 2008 (deleting tests is no longer allowed)
• Student enrollment process from Peoplesoft to Bb June 7, 2008
• Make your Summer Bb course available to students
  
• Summer classes begin June 9, 2008

Blackboard will be used at SCC for Summer 08, Fall 08 and Spring 09. After June 30, 2009 all Bb classes will be using Desire2Learn.

LMS Evaluation Taskforce Report - Senate 2/19/08 noon

Colleagues, If you have an interest in the outcome of the Learning Management System Task Force recommendations (e.g., the future of Blackboard), I encourage you to attend this SCC Academic Senate meeting on Tuesday, February 19th, noon to 1 pm in RN 258. The LMS Report is a 15 minute agenda item at the end of the meeting.

The LMS Task Force has recommended, and the district-wide Educational Technology Committee has endorsed, the replacement of Blackboard with Desire2Learn, a competing e-learning platform.

The faculty co-chairs and available SCC members of the LMS Task Force will be at the Academic Senate meeting to discuss the process in more detail.

The SCC Academic Senate appointed members to the LMS Taskforce to represent faculty interests. During the taskforce’s work last semester, several emails to all faculty were sent out as invitations to explore the five systems evaluated – Bb Hosted, Moodle, Sakai, Angel Learning and Desire2Learn. I realize could have overlooked the invitations to test out the systems yourself. Please explore the demo class as a student using this URL and login information (faculty login has been included in mass emails to faculty but will not be posted on a public web page):

http://82showcase.desire2learn.com

Login info available by request

We look forward to working with you on migrating your Bb course to this new environment. Review the D2L website for Instructor Tools at http://www.desire2learn.com/learningenvironment/tools/instructor/

What are the next steps? Planning is underway on how to approach the migration for SCC faculty. We will be offering training both in person and as online 24/7 tutorials. We have identified key Blackboard courses to be transferred to D2L in the first steps. Soon we will be offering demonstrations of D2L. When? After the contract has been signed.

Viewing Quizzes is Squirrelly for Instructors

Ahh, the new semester and a refreshed Blackboard. This first week I've had three reports of instructors not able to see quizzes in their classes. "Maybe I'm just imagining that last semester I could see the quiz questions ..." and it seems to me that I've been able to see questions as well. Not now! Gloria Lopez was the second instructor to report this change.

But it is more convoluted that that. Is it a browser issue or an operating issue? Then Bill Doonan called to say (he stumped the Help Desk) and cannot view quizzes in two classes but he can view quizzes in the new course copy we made for this semester! Oh my head aches! Bill tested on his iMac using Safari, in the smart classroom using WindowsXP and Internet Explorer and at home using IE. In my office, using Firefox on both MacMini and Windows XP I could see the questions.

I'll report this change to have other confirm the experience and look for options.

Acrobat request form

We are continuing to receive lots of calls and e-mails about issues with the Bb request form (Acrobat).  We are aware that it is not working for all users.  If you encounter a problem with the form and are unable to submit your request, please contact us as follows:

SCC Blackboard Faculty Support
blackboard@scc.losrios.edu
(916) 650-2726
Alternate phone:
(916) 558-2635

We apologize for the inconvenience and will continue to streamline this request process for future semesters.

A word about deleting tests and pools

Remember that if a test has been deployed, the deployment link must be removed before the test can be removed from the Test Manager. (You always have had the ability to remove a deployment link, so the presence of extraneous tests does not have to distract students.) Also, if a pool is being used as a source for random blocks of questions in a test, that test must be removed before the pool can be removed from the Pool Manager.

System is up / Delete unwanted test pools - Now through 1/14

Blackboard is back up and available for all faculty.  

As a reminder, the ability to remove (delete) unwanted test pools in Blackboard as been re-activated on a temporary basis.  If you have unwanted test pools in Blackboard, you are encouraged to delete them before January 14, when this function will once again be removed.  As you may be aware, removal of test pools causes system instability in most cases, therefore it is not allowed during the regular semester.  We are providing this brief window so faculty can remove unwanted tests, thereby reducing the overall size of the Blackboard course and making the list of tests and pools easier to manage.

Spring 2008 Bb Request Form - UPDATE

What a way to end the year ... someone changed the URLs on the last working day of the year and then went on vacation. Well it messed up our Bb Acrobat Form big time.

I have revised and tested the form. It is working again. Thank you for your patience! Download the Request Form to your hard drive and use Acrobat Reader to fill out the details.

For the gun shy, try testing with a quick form at http://scc.losrios.edu/~bbsite/course/test.pdf. I'd recommend this step for Macintosh users.

Use these links to check your requests
Fall 2007 Bb Course List

Requests Submitted to the database (realtime list)

Blackboard down for maintenance, 1/4 - 1/8/08

Reminder, Blackboard will be down for maintenance 1/4 – 1/8/08.  (Not even Bb Administrators can access the system during these dates to process course requests.)
Here is the schedule:

Bb OFFLINE to all users January 4-8, 2008
(archive of classes, purge assessment data, delete all enrolled students)
    •    Bb Online for faculty January 8-14, 2008 to delete tests & other course updates
    •    Bb Online for faculty January 15, 2008 (deleting tests is no longer allowed)
    •    Flex Workshops January 16, 17-18, 2008
    •    Begin enrolling students based on submitted requests January 17, 2008
    •    Classes begin January 22, 2008

PLEASE NOTE:  The “Remove” function will be activated in the Test Manager from 1/8 through 1/14.  This is your only opportunity to remove old/unwanted tests and pools from your course!

Course Request Form - problems submitting

SCC Faculty,
We are experiencing issues with the SCC Bb Course Request form.  It is currently unable to submit data when the form is completed.  This is due to a change made by IT staff over the winter break, where the former “www” server was replaced with a new server, and hence the form cannot reference the appropriate script that allows it to submit data.  (You may notice other SCC websites that also have problems connecting to links with the “www” prefix.  Tip: Try replacing the “www” with “wserver” to fix the problem.)

We hope to have this situation resolved soon.

Bb Server Errors - Sun AM 12/9

Blackboard was offline during the 9 am to 10 am timeframe. If you had any assignments due during that time period, some students might be reporting problems to you.

@ONE Technology Skills Institute at Evergreen Valley College

Hands-On Winter Institute

Start off 2008 right with information you can put to use during the spring term! Join us in San Jose for 3 days of hands-on, project-based learning that will help YOU achieve your goal of doing more for your students, while saving yourself time throughout the year! The Winter Institute is an ideal place to learn new skills and apply them to your own projects, while meeting other professionals from throughout the California Community College system. Topics range from introducing the next version of Microsoft Office, Podcasting, Vodcasting to Teaching Online.

What’s more, you can use these workshops to boost your career. Academic credit is available for an additional $60 per unit through San Jose State University when you enroll separately and complete a small demonstration project after the Institute.

Visit http://www.cccone.org/institutes/08winter/index.htm for more information.

Bb Maintenance 11/12/07

To: all Blackboard Faculty
From: - Distictwide Bb Support Team

In the past few weeks there have been repeated incidents of performance problems on Blackboard, including:
short periods when the system has been unavailable altogether, short periods when particular pages would not load correctly (grade book, assessments, discussion boards) or not load at all, general unresponsiveness (with a variety of error messages) as users navigated the system These problems have occurred despite improvements that were made prior to the start of the semester.

We will be putting several patches into the Blackboard software on Monday 11/12/07 to help further improve the performance. These patches were provided by Blackboard specifically for Los Rios, but came with no guarantees, since Blackboard could not thoroughly test with our specific environment or load. We were initially reluctant to implement these patches, but recently undertook many hours of functionality testing and it appears that all functions are intact after the patches were implemented on a test server. However, we have no way of testing the system under the full load of our users.

We are implementing these "fixes" because the recent problems cause renewed concern that without the fixes, the system may not be able to perform adequately during the high volume of activity up to and including finals week. We are taking the following steps to minimize disruption:

1) We will create a back up copy of the system early Monday morning while the system is down
2) We will implement the new patches before the system comes back up at 5 am
3) We will test the functions of the system again, as soon as it is available
4) Throughout Monday, we will closely monitor the system for any signs of problems
5) If major problems develop, we will send an urgent email to all users that the system will be taken down in 30 minutes. Within one hour, we will remove the patches and should be able to bring the system back up with the most recent data. In the unlikely event that the patches corrupt data, we will restore from the Monday morning backup (which means that work done on Monday would be lost)

You can help us by doing the following:
check your course sites to make sure that everything seems to be OK and let us know immediately if you find any problems If at all possible, reschedule or extend due dates for exams, quizzes, and other work
Warn students that their work might be lost if they use the system on Monday and things go badly

It is our hope that the system integrity will not be affected negatively and that these patches will improve performance so we can get through the rest of the semester. We have plans for other actions over the winter break but those steps cannot be taken while the system is in use.

We greatly appreciate your patience.

It's all in the patches

Look for an announcement (forthcoming by e-mail) from the district regarding installation of new “patches” (code fixes) that will be installed this week.  Blackboard has provided these fixes to resolve some of our ongoing performance issues, which have increased in the past two weeks.

Mark Your Calendar - Jan 08 Downtime

Important dates for Bb Maintenance
Close Fall 2007 semester and begin Spring 2008 semester:

• Bb Spring 2008 Course Request Form (PDF)
  
  
• Finals - December 14-20, 2007
• End of Semester - December 20, 2007
• Save a back up of your Bb Gradebook as Excel file
  (one last time, afterall, this is a weekly activity, right?)
  
  
• Grades are due January 2, 2008
• Bb OFFLINE to all users January 4-8, 2008
  (archive of classes, purge assessment data, delete enrolled students)
  
• Bb Online for faculty January 8-14, 2008 to delete tests
• Bb Online for faculty January 15, 2008 (deleting tests is no longer allowed)
  
• Flex Workshops January 16, 17-18, 2008
• Classes begin January 22, 2008

General system slowness / database error

Today we are still seeing generalized slowness on the Blackboard system.  Right now there are 1622 concurrent users on the system (down from yesterday’s high of 4200) and the system is still touchy.  Several reports of “Database Error” messages in particular.  We’ve been told that the main source of the problem is again the gradebook/assessments module.  District IT is putting two more web servers into place immediately (should be finished this morning) which will bring the total number of Blackboard web servers to 13.  We’ll keep you updated as we get more information.

Five o'clock update

I hate to sound like the boy who cried wolf, but we are again seeing some irregularities in the system performance.  Right now we have nearly 3600 concurrent users on the system.  Apparently today we hit an ALL TIME HIGH for the number of concurrent Blackboard users at 4200.  Remember, the more people we cram onto the boat, the more likely we are to take on water...  We are also experiencing both midterm exams and the start of the second 8 weeks courses at the same time.  Thanks for your patience in bearing with the system as we navigate these choppy waters.  

Performance problems today

The problem with Blackboard today appears to have been related to a background process that was running in the system.  IT staff terminated that process and restarted Blackboard.  As of now, Blackboard has returned to its normal functionality.  We are sorry for the inconvenience.

To: ARC Faculty <Faculty@arc.losrios.edu>, CRC-Faculty <CRC-Faculty@crc.losrios.edu>, FLC - Faculty <FLC-Faculty@flc.losrios.edu>, SCC - Faculty <sccfaculty@scc.losrios.edu>
Conversation: Blackboard
Subject: Blackboard

There was an issue with Blackboard today, October 23rd, from 2:00-2:40pm.  We apologize for any inconvenience.

------ End of Forwarded Message

Blackboard VERY slow right now

We are currently experiencing some extremely slow response times from Blackboard.   We (SCC) are checking with District IT to determine and resolve the problem. Stay tuned!

Connect 2nd 8 Week Rosters

(10/17) We have modified our process for requesting roster-to-course connections.

There is still an Acrobat document that guides you through the questions and send us email with your request details. It also save the requests to a database.

So what's new? We have a searchable database of all your courses because there is often confusion when there are several Bb courses that could be linked to several class rosters.

Start by searching for your courses at http://wserver.scc.losrios.edu/~bbsite/course/searchcourses.html.
The link on search results page opens the Acrobat Blackboard Course Request form.

Firefox users - beware of Java update

I advocate Bb users have more than one browser on their computers, and my preferred browser on Windows and Macintosh is Firefox. Here is a tip from Greg Beyrer (CRC) "I updated Java this morning like a good soldier but then discovered that it is taking more than 20 minutes to load the visual textbox editor to post something to a discussion board. I even restarted my computer without making a difference. I then disabled Java 1.6 (leaving Java 1.4) using the Java console control panel and that didn’t help. I even uninstalled Java 6 and it didn’t help. Firefox now works with the old version of Java (1.4) so I’ll stick with that version."

Mid semester - don't mess with success! And, backup your gradebook and take 30 minutes to organize the files on your hard drive to better reflect the organization of your online courses.

Ups and downs of internet / Bb access

After I posted the “all clear” message we received from IT yesterday morning at 10:50, Los Rios once again lost access to the outside world (internet connectivity) for a large portion of the late morning and afternoon.  Again, this means Blackboard was not accessible to students from off campus until connectivity was once again restored at 4:25 pm.  Clearly this affected students’ ability to access their courses for majority of the day.  We have seen a rise in service interruptions over the past few weeks—generally due to differing circumstances, such as power outages or AT&T circuit problems—but regardless of the cause, connectivity issues are troubling to online faculty and students and present an barrier to effective teaching and learning.  SCC staff will be working with District IT to develop further safeguards against service interruptions.  Thanks for your patience as we continue to work through some of these issues.

From District IT: Internet services restored

Internet services, including off-campus access to Blackboard, have been restored.  The message from IT is below:

Subject: FW: Internet services restored

Internet Services to the District were restored at approximately 9:55 AM this morning (Wednesday 10/10).  Once AT&T dispatched a technician in the field, the problem was quickly diagnosed and resolved.  Los Rios IT has escalated this and other recent Internet outages to our Internet Service Provider (CENIC) for ‘root cause’ analysis and long-term resolution.  
 
Thank you for your patience during this outage period.  
 
Brian Roach
Director, Technical Services
Los Rios Community College District

Internet Services Not Working and Limited E-mail

The following message is from IT staff at SCC sent this morning at 7:50 am.  Please note that Blackboard may not be accessible to students from off campus until this issue is resolved:

SCC Community –
 
We are currently experiencing problems with our connection to the internet. This means you will not be able to connect to external (non Los Rios) websites. Blackboard, Peoplesoft and all other Los Rios websites are still accessible from campus.  In terms of e-mail you will be able to send/receive messages from people with a Los Rios e-mail account.
 
The District Office is aware of the problem and working with AT&T. I will forward you any additional information I receive. Thank you for your patience.

Los Rios Internet Access Down (Blackboard affected)

Following is a message from District IT regarding a loss of internet connectivity today. Until this issue is resolved, Blackboard is not accessible from off-campus.
------------------------------
10/10/07 7:53 a.m.

Los Rios lost access to the internet this morning about 2 a.m. Los Rios is connected to the internet by CENIC (Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California).

CENIC leases a high speed circuit from ATT. The problem appears to be with the circuit provided by ATT. CENIC has been aware of the problem since early this morning and has been working with ATT to get it resolved. This circuit has gone out of service several times this year, and ATT does not seem to be able to decisively resolve the problem.

Los Rios has been working for several years to secure fiber optic cable to link our campuses together and to provide a redundant link to CENIC, eliminating the need for this problematic ATT circuit. The fiber for the connection to CENIC is in place and equipment has been ordered to bring it into service.

I apologize for the lack of service this morning. Our goal is to provide continuous high quality service throughout the network. Over the next two months, we hope to complete the fiber optic network project, providing improved protection against these kinds of outages.

Mick

Mick Holsclaw

Associate Vice Chancellor for IT

Los Rios Community College District

Internet Connection Lost - Sat 10/6

Notification from LRCCD Help Desk: On Saturday (10/6/07) about 5:45pm we experienced an outage of the DS3 circuit connecting Los Rios to the Internet. The problem was isolated and resolved by AT&T technicians at about 9:15pm. Although there were no problems with the Los Rios servers that support Blackboard, PeopleSoft, and other systems in the Data Center, this network outage caused these servers to be inaccessible via the Internet.

We realize that Blackboard is heavily used on the weekend and evenings and we apologize for this disruption. Los Rios technicians, in addition to the AT&T technicians, respond quickly and the problem was resolved as timely as possible.

Blackboard service interruption - Sunday 9/23

There was a failure of the Los Rios bridge/bandwidth shaper just inside
the CENIC router yesterday morning (Sunday 9/23) at approximately 11:30
AM. It was restored to service at approximately 5:45 PM. During this
period Internet services to/from Los Rios were down. Problem diagnosis
and service improvement analysis is continuing.

This failure directly affected access to the Blackboard system, and we have
received reports that it was down as late as 7:00 pm on Sunday.

Overnight Power Outage at District Office

There was a power outage at the District Office overnight that affected nearly all Los Rios systems, including Blackboard.  Students may report problems accessing the system during the early morning hours while it was down.  This was not a Blackboard problem, but a district-wide outage of all computer systems.  Access to Blackboard was restored early this morning.  For more information on the outage and affected systems, please see today’s e-mail sent to all exchange users from Steve Bowles, IT Director.

LMS Evaluation Team Volunteers Needed

Interested SCC Nominees Need to Volunteer for the Learning Management System Evaluation Team.

Over 450 Sacramento City course sections with over 14,200 student enrollments use the Blackboard Academic System in support of online, hybrid and web-enhanced classes - currently, 109 online sections have 4100+ enrollments.

Every computing system should have periodic review with consideration for growth or alternative approaches. The Los Rios District has begun the evaluation of Blackboard and other alternative LMS options. This detailed review is motivated by dissatisfaction from some of our experienced faculty teaching online and hybrid courses and student frustration.

The LMS Evaluation Team, assisted by District Office Information Technology staff, will work through October and November. At this time, meetings are planned on Fridays with additional time required to complete the evaluation tasks. Participating faculty will need to make a commitment to evaluate all options and attend all meetings.

The evaluation team will recommend renewal of the Blackboard Academic System contract or select an alternative LMS product. Part of the evaluation is to consider how current course content will be copied to a new system and if publisher content will be available. The final report and recommendation from this team will be forwarded to the district-wide Educational Technology Committee and then to Chancellor Harris for action.

Yes, this is a fast-track project and an important opportunity for you to actively influence the next Los Rios learning management system.

Faculty who do not serve on the LMS Evaluation Team will have opportunities to view demonstration course sites for each product and to submit feedback to the team.

Interested faculty should contact Linda Stroh as an SCC nominee. The list of nominees from all four colleges will be reviewed and appointments made in consultation with campus Academic Senate Presidents.

Partial list of Learning Management Systems for review include the following (links are to the product descriptions): Blackboard, ANGEL, Desire2Learn, Sakai and Moodle.

Watch for the SCC LMS Features Survey to distinguish between courses requiring LMS features and courses that want to deliver content online.

(Announcement previewed by the SCC Academic Senate on September 18, 2007 and SCC Information Technology Committee on September 14, 2007)

-- Melissa Green Instructional Development Coordinator
-- Jory Hadsell, Distance Education Coordinator

Where do "saved" posts go in the discussion board?

Question from a faculty member:

> Do you know where documents go if a student hits "save" in blackboard?

More of you are asking this lately, so I thought I would share the information here.

Yes, we do know where these posts go!  This is very confusing for students, and why I always advise against doing a Save in the DB.  (Use a word processor and save it locally—it’s a better, safer computing practice.)

To find the “saved” post:

The student has to change their view of the discussion board.  The default view shows only published posts.  Inside the DB forum, the student will need to click the drop down menu next to "Display" and change it from "published" to "Show All" and then click the "Go" button.  This will display their "saved" or "unpublished" posts.  

BEWARE--the next time the student opens the "saved" or "unpublished" post, they will only have the option to publish or cancel.  In other words, the post can only be saved once before it must be published.

Hopefully this is helpful as you get these questions from your students.

Problems accessing the discussion board

Some faculty have reported that when navigating their Bb course sites, they receive a “cannot find this page” error when clicking on the links to the discussion board.  We are researching this issue.  There is a background process that runs inside of Blackboard that is “sticking” and causing this problem.  Our district Server Administrator has reset this problem and it appears to have gone away for the time being.  As it is reported again, we will attempt to take the same action.  We also have an open ticket with Blackboard, which has already been escalated, and we hope to have more news on this topic soon.

Email Challenges & Network Conflicts

All Los Rios Computer Users,

As you are probably painfully aware, our Los Rios Windows’ infrastructure has been having difficulty over the past few days. This problem has unfortunately manifested itself in periods when users and servers can not authenticate successfully and are therefore not allowed their rightful service. This has also resulted in outages of Outlook Web Access, Exchange and various other Windows-based services. At this point the underlying problem appears to be resolved but due to the nebulous nature of the problem we not ready to guarantee that all symptoms of this problem are gone. We will be watching closely for the next day or two to confirm that all symptoms of this problem have been eliminated. Please report any new occurrences of this problem to the Help Desk.

A more technical explanation of the problem (if interested): the Los Rios Windows infrastructure is composed of a network of users, workstations, applications, servers, and controllers that use a distributed directory service (Active Directory) to manage the security between all Windows devices and objects. This security mechanism is time-sensitive and requires that all Windows servers and controllers share a consistent and accurate Time source. Unfortunately, one of the primary controllers in the Los Rios network obtained a “bad” Time source yesterday morning (Tuesday) at approximately 8:30 AM. This “bad” time-stamp was then rapidly propagated across the Los Rios Windows’ infrastructure resulting in sporadic authentication problems and Windows’ service outages.

Though this problem was recognized within minutes of its first occurrence, due to the distributed nature the Windows’ infrastructure (directory, controllers, servers, etc.) it was very difficult to find and correct all objects with Time-stamps. At several times over the past two days the problem was believed to have been resolved, only to see it reappear in a different branch of the Los Rios network. At this time, neither our District Office Windows’ Administrators nor Microsoft Technical Support can see any further evidence of Time-stamp problems. We will be monitoring the Windows systems very closely over the next several hours.


Thank you for your patience during this difficult period.

Brian Roach
Director, Technical Services
Los Rios Community College District

Gradebook Issues

If instructors are experiencing problems with viewing your Gradebook in Bb in the spreadsheet view, try using the Gradebook Views > View Grades by Item instead.

When you contact the Help Desk to report Gradebook issues, tell them if you had used the Upload from Excel option on the Gradebook Spreadsheet view. I have read a few reports that sometimes uploading a column of grades has created display problems. Remember to keep a hard copy of your graded activities throughout the semester. Each time you post grades to Bb, download the gradebook as an Excel file and keep these copies for the semester. Destroy all extra copies after you have submitted final grades.