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Blackboard FAQ

Questions about Blackboard?

As an online student at Humber, a number of questions may come up about certain tools in Blackboard. Here are some of the more common things you may encounter.

OLC Blackboard Support
Blackboard.com Student Help site

Preparing to use Blackboard

  • Blackboard is Humber College’s primary Learning Management System and allows us to transform the traditional classroom into the digital realm.

  • Use Google Chrome as your browser and make sure you add Humber.ca as an approved or safe site in settings.

  • Prepare your computer. Kindly visit the Blackboard.com site to ensure your browser is compatible. 

  • Make sure you check out Humber’s Online Etiquette guideline from the Office of Student Conduct.

How to login to Blackboard

  • To access your Blackboard course site, you are required to login to learn.humber.ca

  • If you are logging in for the first time, you will be given a temporary password from the ITS Service desk.  After you log in, you will be prompted to change your password.  If you have any issues with your password,  contact the ITS service desk by calling: 416-675-6622 ext. 8888 then select 0 , to speak to live agent.

You’ve logged in, where to start?

  • Click on your specific course code (underlined link under My Courses) in the middle of the page. When you click on this, it will take you in to that specific course site.

  • Once in the course site, look for the menu down the left side, this is your course navigation menu.

  • When starting your course, check for things like a getting started section or a critical path. These tools will help answer some questions you might have about what is expected or when things might happen in your course.

  • Want to know what textbooks might be required? Check out the course outline. Books can be ordered online through Humber’s bookstore or may be available through another seller (i.e. Amazon.ca or Indigo/Chapters).

  • Your instructor might use Blackboard Collaborate Ultra or another type of video conference software. Make sure to test your computers microphone and webcam, as they may be needed during or throughout the course. For more about Collaborate Ultra, check out our Blackboard Support section.

  • Have questions about the course content? Blackboard has an internal email system. To contact your instructor, select course messages/email.

Ways to connect with your online classmates

Many courses will have a posting under discussions that the instructor has created for the class to introduce themselves. Make sure you take advantage of this and respond to other student’s posts to make them feel welcome, as well.

Just as discussions are important in a traditional class, they are equally important in an online one. Not only are they important to connect with others in the class, but they may be part of your grade. For information about discussion boards.

Taking online courses might feel like you are, but there are tools like course messages in your course where you can email your fellow students or your instructor with questions to help you be successful in your online course. Also, if you have questions about using Blackboard, you can always reach out to us at our Contact Us section!

Once you’ve introduced yourself and people know how to connect with you, feel free to reach out to your classmates and have virtual study sessions or work on group work, if your course has that. There are many tools available to use for this, check out our Digital Tools section for some suggestions!

Communicating with your instructor

  • There will be different ways for communicating with your instructor online, please check with your instructor and your Blackboard course site on the preferred method. Common methods in Blackboard are announcements and course messages.

  • Your instructor may hold office hours online. They may connect by either using the telephone or by holding an online session.

  • For any questions you might have about content or the availability of a link, please contact your instructor by using the course messages tool in your course site.

  • In the course menu on the left hand side you will see your Blackboard navigation menu, select course messages or email.
  • Select, Create Message.
  • Click on the To button.
  • You will see a Select recipients box, find the name of the person you want to send an email to and click on their name and select the arrow in the middle to move that name to the right. Whoever you put in that right side box, is who will receive the email.
  • Complete the message and hit submit.

There are two ways to view your announcements:

  1. On the tools panel on your home page, click announcements to view all announcements from all of your courses.

  2. Click on your course, and click on the announcement heading in the course menu. This will allow you to view the announcement from course selected.

Online class meetings

Blackboard Collaborate is a real-time video conferencing tool that lets you add files, share applications, and use a virtual whiteboard to interact. Collaborate with the Ultra experience opens right in your browser, so you don’t have to install any software to join a session.

As a student, you may be required to attend an online session. Follow these instructions to learn how to access the session from your Blackboard course site. Go to the Course menu located on the left side of your course. Find the heading Blackboard Collaborate Ultra (keep in mind your instructor may rename this heading) so look for things related to what it is: i.e. Online office hours. After clicking on the heading it will open up the tool. You will see a course room at the top, that generally will not be where to click. The instructor generally will create a session that may be named by the topic of the chat or put a date and time on the session you will need. Look lower on the page for a session that may apply.

If you do not see the tool in the menu of the course, please contact your instructor to see if they will be using the tool and when it might be available or check announcements for instructions.

Blackboard.com has a great site available for any issues you may have with Blackboard Collaborate.

Blackboard Collaborate site

Getting Started in Collaborate

Troubleshooting

Students can use Google products for collaborative work, such as Google docs, presentations, and sheets. Students can share edit access to their group files and folders with the instructor to provide comments, when helpful.

Assignments, grades & exams

NOTE: If your instructor has not allowed multiple attempts, you can submit your assignment only once. Before you click submit, be sure that you have attached any required files to your assignment.

How to submit an assignment

  1. On the course menu, select the content area that holds the assignment. For example, your instructor might create an assignments content area in your course.

  2. Click the name of the assignment.

  3. On the upload assignment page, review the instructions and download any files provided by the instructor. Complete the assignment using one or both of the following:

  • Click on the write submission button to expand the assignment submission box where you can type your response. You can use the content editor to format text, add files, images, links, video files or embed YouTube videos.

  • If your response to the assignment is in a separate file, such as a Word document then click on the browse my computer button, and select a file to attach. If you attach a file, type a title for it. Follow any other instructions that your instructor provided you for naming the assignment file.​

  1. It is optional to type comments to your instructor in the comments box.

  2. Click the submit button, when you are ready.

  3. Blackboard displays a success message at the top of the review submission page confirming your assignment has been successfully submitted to your instructor.

How to submit an Assignment Video

Students have various options to create a digital presentation and upload these files to Blackboard.

  1. PowerPoint

  2. Google presentation links

  3. Word documents

Tip: Add text in the speaker notes section of each slide to share what you might have shared verbally.

There are many possible reasons for this happening. Here are some of them.

  • The browser crashed. Sometimes browsers will freeze and look like it is still working but you may notice that your answers are not saving. It is likely that it already submitted. When browser crashes, internet or connection issues happen, Blackboard will submit the answers you answered to that point, automatically.

  • Your internet or wifi dropped or lost connection at some point.

  • You are using a browser like Internet Explorer. This browser is out of date and not recommended.

If this happens and the test is one attempt, please contact your instructor for next steps and to possible have a second attempt at the test.

Tip: Make sure you are using Google Chrome. Try using the Incognito mode on the browser window before login into Blackboard and start the exam.

On the course menu, select My Grades. The My Grades page shows the status of gradable items, such as tests, assignments, journal and blog entries, and discussion posts. vIf you don’t see a grade, your instructor may not have released it to students yet.