Using Digication Within Blackboard Building Block: A Faculty Guide

Using Digication within our Blackboard Building Block is a bit different from what you may be used to. Here's an overview of the tool and how to go about accomplishing the needed tasks once you've set it up for use within your course.

If you haven't finished that setup process, start here: Enabling Digication for a Blackboard Course

Digication Homepage within Blackboard

Upon navigating to Digication within Blackboard, you'll notice that the look and feel of the homepage area are different, and the content you see relates first to the course from which you are accessing Digication:

My ePortfolios (Shared with this course)

This area is where you'll be able to see all of the ePortfolios you have shared with the course.

Show all my ePortfolios

This area is where you'll be able to see all of the ePortfolios created to date.

ePortfolio Assignments

"ePortfolio assignments" is a new area where you have the ability to create assignments within the course to which students can submit their work.

All ePortfolios (Shared with this course)

Below the assignment area, under "All ePortfolios" you'll find all ePortfolios created by other users (students) that are shared with the course.

Creating an Assignment

To create an assignment:

Click on the "+ New Assignment" button to add an assignment.

Enter a name for the assignment and click on the "+ Add Assignment" button. Your new assignment will appear under "ePortfolio Assignments"

Gradebook

You'll see that in the "ePortfolio Assignments," area next to the "+ New Assignment," button there's a link called "Gradebook". Clicking on this link will bring you to the new "Gradebook" tab within the course externally. From the new Gradebook area, you'll see a roster of all the enrolled students, with fields for each assignment placed next to their names.

Entering Grades

Simply click on the cell for the student and grade to be entered. Clicking on the tab key on your keyboard will bring you to the next assignment for that student. For large classes, there is a "Search" field that will allow you to filter by a students by name as well, for easy grading.

Adding Comments to Grades

A small text bubble icon will appear whenever clicking in a grading field; this is for you to add comments. Clicking on it will give you a pop-up window to enter your comment and click "Save changes" to save it. This can be done and redone as many times as needed.

Editing Assignments

Clicking on it gives you a pop-up that allows you to edit settings for the assignment which include:

  • A "Make viewable?" checkbox, which allows students to see their grades.
  • A "Maximum Points" field where you can set the maximum amount of points for the assignment.
  • A "Relative Weight" field which allows you to assign a relative weight for each assignment. Weight is set to 1 by default.

Maximum Points and Relative Weight

Once all of the necessary changes have been made, you'll need to click on "Save changes" for them to be reflected in both systems. Please note that all grades entered will push automatically to Blackboard. 

Warning: If you change the name of an assignment in Digication externally, the assignments will no longer sync with the Blackboard grade book. Please be careful!

Grading in Blackboard

If you'd rather use Blackboard's grading functionality instead of the Grade Book within the Digication tool, you can do so easily! Creating an assignment within a course also creates an entry in the Grade Center. This is another way of streamlining the process of grading by allowing users to work in the ways they know best.

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