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Blackboard Policies

I. INTRODUCTION

This set of policies is intended to provide members of the Washington state educational technology community with standardized practices for using the Blackboard system. These policies are also intended to insure reliable and consistent service from the technical support staff that keeps Blackboard available. These policies are subject to change and this document was last updated on July 24, 2002.

II. ADMINISTRATIVE USER ROLES

The number of users with administrative access is intentionally kept small for security reasons. We will apply the following levels of administrative access:
None -- default level. Most users will have this.
System Administrator -- complete system access through System Admin tab.

System Administrator Responsibilities (Anne Allen, John Costello, Sue Gettmann)
1. Host and maintain the Blackboard server, conduct data backups, and configure the Institution Properties (John)
2. Configure the Portal Areas, Gateway Options, and System Settings; batch create and remove users; batch create courses; batch populate courses (Sue)
3. Oversee Course Management and User Management; communicate important information to user community; and, provide system-wide administrative oversight (Anne)
4. Create a secure closed classroom environment for those using Blackboard (John)
5. Assist instructors with Course Management and User Management tasks (Anne)

System Support Responsibilities (Anne Allen, John Costello, Sue Gettmann)
1. Generate files to create users, create courses, and enroll users (Sue)
2. Assist instructors with Course Management and User Management tasks (Anne, Sue)
3. Update Institution Calendar and Announcements with important course-related information and events (Anne)
4. Update Institution Calendar with important server-related information (John)
5. Provide and maintain Colors and Images (Sue)

Question Escalation:
If a participant in a workshop has a question regarding Blackboard, s/he should contact the instructor. If necessary, the instructor will then contact:
1. Call or email bbsupport (206-439-6901 or bbsupport@psesd.wednet.edu)
2. The email message will be routed to Anne, Sue, and John and will be handled by the appropriate person, depending upon the nature of the question:
- Administrative, costs - Anne Allen
- Enrolling users, creating courses - Anne Allen or Sue Gettmann
- Technical, server issues - John Costello

III. ACCEPTABLE USE

The Blackboard server housed at ETDC may be used as follows, based on the original purpose for its purchase and the license coverage:

Primary acceptable use:
- To extend the staff development capabilities of ETSC projects in Washington state by housing course-related materials and information.
- To extend staff development capabilities of the ETSC program
- Short-term staff development projects from outside educational entities
- Puget Sound ESD district use with students or staff

Course User Roles:
1. Instructor - complete access to the Control Panel tab
2. Student - no access to the Control Panel tab

Instructor Responsibilities:
1. Own and administer his or her course site(s) and the content of that course
2. Acquire copyright permission, as needed, for information in any media format used within a Blackboard course
3. Maintain any necessary levels of privacy for the Blackboard classroom environment
4. Make courses "Available" to students if desired
5. Drop students (Remove Users) from courses; realizing that student-related course information is also removed as a result
6. Enroll students (Add Users) to courses
7. Export courses for archival purposes as they end

Student Responsibilities (all students):
1. Maintain system security by preserving privacy of login and password
2. Execute additional responsibilities within courses as requested by Instructor

What Instructors CAN do:
- Develop courses, after they've been created
- Enroll students in courses, after their user accounts have been created
- Make courses available that they teach

What Instructors CAN'T do:
- Create courses (this is an administrative function)
- Create users
- Let users self-enroll in courses

IV. INSTITUTION USER/COURSE MANAGEMENT ROLE
- The User/Course Management Contact from each ESD and institution will submit course and user requests.
- User accounts and courses will be created with 2 days of the request. Instructions for creating user accounts and courses will be maintained at http://www.edtech.wednet.edu/programs/blackboard

V. USERNAME AND PASSWORD

The Blackboard system maintains its records of users by using a unique username for every individual. Passwords in Blackboard are encrypted. Even the System Administrator cannot view passwords. Users are added almost daily to the Blackboard system by a System Administrator who does batch uploads of all new users. This upload includes Username, Last Name, First Name, E-mail address, and Password. It does not include social security numbers or any other information. Once this information has been uploaded, the username and password would look something like this:
1. Your login is the first letter of your first name + your entire last name. Example: dramsay
2. Your password default is: changeme
3. You'll want to change your password once you login for the first time.

VI. COURSE MANAGEMENT

Policies:
- The disk quota for courses is 50 MB. Users will be warned when they reach 30 MB.
- Courses will be kept on the server up to 1 year after they have been administered.

The Blackboard system maintains its records of courses by using a unique Course ID for every course. For our purposes, we've chosen to utilize a Course ID following these conventions:

Example: AALLEN101SP02

AALLEN denotes the name of the course originator,
101 denotes the first course of the originator in a 3-digit format,
SP denotes the seasonal abbreviation (SP, SU, FA, WI), and
02 denotes the year

The course number will be automatically assigned when the course is created.

VII. BACKUP SCHEDULE

The Blackboard system will be backed up daily. Users may still access the system during a backup although it may at times seem somewhat sluggish in response. Generally, backups will be done at night, when users won't be as likely to use Blackboard, and it shouldn't take any longer than 8 hours. If it does take longer, for some reason, we'll try and adjust the backups to make them more efficient, while still backing up all the important data.

Delete Users List - Download the Excel file to see which users are scheduled to be deleted on January 19, 2005. If there are any names on this list that need to be maintained as users in the system, contact Anne Allen at aallen@psesd.org.