Want to Get Text Messages Whenever Announcements or Grades Are Posted in Blackboard?

Students can sign up via Rave Alerts to receive text or email messages from their Blackboard classes whenever a new announcement, grade or assignment is posted. It’s simple and faculty don’t need to do anything to enable this feature. By default all text and email alerts from Blackboard are turned off so students must opt in.

Rave Alerts are scheduled for delivery every 10 minutes, so if an instructor posts an announcement at 10:30 that class is cancelled for today, students who have signed up for text alerts should receive that message by 10:40.

How to Sign Up?

  1. Log into Blackboard

  2. Click on the Rave link in the Tools menu

  3. You will be automatically logged into Rave.  If you have previously configured your Rave account with a cell phone number you can go ahead and select the classes and alerts you wish to receive.  If you need to add your cell phone number to Rave see the instructions at Signing Up for Topper Text.  If  you have configured your Rave account you can go ahead and select the classes and areas from which to receive texts or emails.

  4. By default all text and email alerts are turned off.    You can choose Default Settings that will automatically be applied to all Blackboard classes. Remember that every announcement, grade, assignment or calendar entry will automatically generate a text message.  You may not want to get that many text messages for every Blackboard class.

  5. You can also choose to only get text or email from specific classes and specific areas.  Click in the boxes in the column under Announcements, Calendar items, Assignments or Grades to enable text messages.

Course Availability in Blackboard

As a new semester begins I wanted to remind students and faculty about the availability of Blackboard classes.  All classes from the official course catalog  are automatically loaded into Blackboard with a status of unavailable. Those courses are immediately available to faculty; however, students will not see those courses in Blackboard until faculty make their courses available.

Steps for faculty to use to make a course available to students:

  1. Go to the Control Panel for the Class
  2. Click on Customization
  3. Click on Properties
  4. Select Yes in the Set Availability section
  5. Click on Submit

You will receive an onscreen receipt confirmation. Now your course is accessible to your students.

Note that classes in Blackboard will automatically be made unavailable to students on the 12th class day of the next semester.

Maintenance Tip: Storing and Backing Up your Files and Documents

Storing and Organizing Files

Properly storing and organizing your digital documents will go a long way towards making your files easy to find and reference later. However, often the biggest issue is creating and maintaining a consistent system that will not leave you wondering where you saved a crucial document.

Both PCs and Mac computers feature a “Documents” folder for containing your documents and files you create or download from the web. Typically, Microsoft Office applications will want to save documents in this folder by default. In this “Documents” folder, you may create additional folders for categorizing the types of files you collect. Should your computer need repair in the future, the St. Edward’s Computer HelpDesk or an outside company will assume that the majority of the files you want saved will be located in this folder.

Creating File Folders on a PC and Mac

On a Mac, double click on the “Macintosh HD” icon on the desktop and click on “Documents,” listed on the left navigation bar. The top of the window will now say “Documents” with a folder icon next to it. This is where you can create folders and save documents. To create a new folder, right-click on your mouse or control-click and choose “New Folder”. Name the untitled folder and press the Return key.

Give your folders descriptive names, such as “Cyber Security Awareness Month,” which is better than an acronym like “CSAM” because over time you may not remember all of the acronyms you created. You may also create folders within folders for ones that contain several sub-groups of documents, such as folders for different years or versions of files. Most people develop their own unique file system method that depends on the types of files they have.

Reserve your desktop for short-term storage of files you are currently working on. Once you no longer need immediate access to that document, put it in the appropriate folder you created in “Documents”.

Backing up Files

Now with a file system in place within your “Documents” folder, it is time to create a backup of your files. IT recommends backing your files in multiple places in the event of a virus infection or computer crash. Should your hard drive fail, your files may not be recoverable.

We recommend backing up your files by making copies and saving them on an external hard drive (available in any electronics department or store), USB drives or your EdShare account. You may also want to burn your files to writable CDs and store them in a safe place.