bb and iclicker at uo -- winter 2012...delete the extra file if you find it: • on a pc, move the...

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Using Blackboard and i>clicker at UO – winter 2012 Note: this document is based on one by i>Clicker Technical Support, but contains modifications and local information specific to the University of Oregon. Please do not distribute it outside the UO. Although a few of the images have not been updated, the instructions here are believed to be accurate for winter 2012..

JQ Johnson, 8 Jan 2012

This guide contains information for UO instructors related to several i>Clicker tasks: A. Getting the i>clicker software ............................................................................................................................ 1 B. Changing i>clicker settings ................................................................................................................................. 2 C. Loading your Blackboard roster into i>grader on your PC .................................................................. 3 D. UO Web Registration (synchronizing student registrations) .............................................................. 5 E. Optional: Using Roll Call and manual registration .................................................................................. 6 F. Uploading grades from i>grader into Blackboard ................................................................................... 6

A. Getting the i>clicker software Reminder: you can check out an i>Clicker base station for a term loan from CMET in Knight Library. The kit includes i>Clicker software on a USB drive, which you can copy to your own computer. Or you can download the most current software version from the web at http://www.iclicker.com/support/downloads/. Copy the folder containing your i>clicker software to the computer you plan to use in the classroom (normally your personal laptop), or to your own flash drive. That folder contains both the i>Clicker programs and the data you collect as you run i>Clicker in class. The UO preferred version of the software is the most recent minor revision of 5.5, without the “CMS Integrate” addon. Be sure to update your software to a current version! Check the version number of your clicker software (on a Mac, right-click i>Clicker.app; on a PC, look at iclicker.exe):

• if your version is 5.4.anything or 5.5.anything, then simply run the included "webupdate" program to make sure your software is up to date

• if your version is 5.3 or earlier, then you have very old software and need to replace it. Please contact CMET Consulting for assistance

• if your version is 6.1 or later, then you are running a very new version of the software, one that we don't currently recommend but that generally works. Update it using the webupdate program, and don't be surprised if it has a few problems at UO. Although we don't recommend that 5.5 users upgrade to it, we think we can support you with it if you decide to live on the leading edge.

During fall 2011 we recommended and distributed a copy of the i>clicker software with a “CMS Integrate” addon module that streamlined integration with Blackboard. Due to bugs and incompatibilities you should not use that module this term. Check your software, and delete the extra file if you find it:

• on a PC, move the program "cms integrate wizard" (or "cms integrate wizard.exe") to the trash

• on a Mac, move the application "Cms Integrate Wizard.app" to the trash

Using Blackboard and i>clicker at UO – winter 2012 2

Troubleshooting tip: If you plan to switch between computers or have multiple instructors all using clickers in the same course you will want to put the software on a flash drive and have everyone use a single copy of the software. If you need to use i>Clicker with both a Mac and a PC in the same course, consult CMET Consulting for assistance in setting everything up.

B. Changing i>clicker settings 1. First start the i>clicker program from the iclicker Win or i>clicker Mac folder. Choose

the course you are working with from your list of i>clicker courses (creating it if necessary). If you add a course to your list, it will create s subfolder in your Classes folder in the iclicker directory. To create a new course, click “Add Course” and enter Course Name (e.g. “Psych of Trauma”) and Course Number (e.g. “PSY 472”).

2. From the welcome screen, select “Your Settings and Preferences.”

3. Locate the “Registration/Export” tab, and verify settings: a. Under “Course Management

System,” select Blackboard (Ver 8) and above

b. Under “Web Registration,” enter

SQLhttp://libweb.uoregon.edu/dc/blackboard/iclicker?c= c. At the bottom of the screen, choose “Set for Course.”

4. You’re ready to run your first class session. This is the easy part. Plug your base

station into your Mac or PC in the classroom. Run the i>clicker application, which puts


up a floating window on your screen. Click "start session" to convert that big window into a small floating toolbar. Put up a slide (PowerPoint, keynote, PDF, or just something you type on the fly) that asks the students a multiple-choice question. On the iClicker toolbar click “Start.” After you've given the students time to respond, click “Stop.” You can click “Display” to have i>clicker show a graph of your students' responses. I>clicker will collect data from your respondents and store it by clicker number, to allow you to upload it to your blackboard Grade Center.

Troubleshooting tip: In Keynote 08, make sure that the option is enabled to allow the iClicker box to float on top of your Keynote presentation when you "play" the presentation. In Keynote Preferences > Slideshow, check “Allow Expose, Dashboard and others to use screen.”

C. Loading your Blackboard roster into i>grader on your PC After your class roster has stabilized (typically at the end of add/drop period, you will need to load your Blackboard roster into i>Grader. 1. Log into Blackboard

(at https://blackboard.uoregon.edu)

2. On the My UO page select the course for which you are using i>clicker.

3. On the Control Panel menu, click “Grade Center” then “Full Grade Center.” In the Grade Center, verify that the third column displayed is “Username.” Still in the Grade Center, under “Work Offline, select “Download.”


4. On the “Download” page,

a. Select: • “Full Grade Center” from the “Data to Download” option • “Comma” as the “Delimiter type” (not TAB which is the default) • “No” in response to “Include Hidden Information”

b. Click “Submit.”

c. On the “Download Grades” confirmation page, select “Download.”

d. Save the file to a location where it can be easily found, such as your desktop or

directly into the appropriate i>clicker Courses sub-folder. It will be named with your course details and the date/time/seconds.

5. Find the file on your computer. Rename the file to gb_export.csv. Move this file into

your i>clicker folder. You’ll have a folder called Classes, and in that folder will be one


subfolder for each course that uses clickers. Place the roster in the appropriate subfolder for the particular course.

Troubleshooting tip: To be safe, open the CSV file to make sure that file includes student last name, student first name, and student Duck ID in columns A to C. This should be automatic when you select “Full Grade Center” from the “Data to Download” option.

D. UO Web Registration (synchronizing student registrations)

Web Synchronization will match the remotes used in your class to the user IDs your students registered on the Blackboard site. The student user IDs are then checked against the usernames found in the exported file from the Blackboard grade center.

1. First, request that the UO Blackboard administrator add the i>Clicker registration form to your blackboard site. Send email to [email protected] containing the name of the course. An item similar to the following will be added to your blackboard site, normally in Course Information unless you request that it be placed elsewhere:

2. Instruct your students to visit the Blackboard site and complete the above form. They can find their clicker ID number on the back of the clicker. They can get help identifying their clicker ID numbers from the Duck Store, CMET (formerly Media Services, in Knight Library), or the Knight Library Computer Help Desk. Troubleshooting tip: Make sure that the students enter their Duck IDs rather than their student ID numbers. You may want to include registration instructions in your syllabus so your students follow the proper registration protocol. Troubleshooting tip: Occasionally a clicker ID is illegible. You can run the ClickerID program to help a student figure out his or her clicker number, or send the student to the library (CMET front desk or Knight Library Computer Help Desk) for assistance. Clicker ID Finder can be found on the iClicker downloads page towards the bottom: http://www.iclicker.com/support/downloads/

Please note: before you can use the Web Synchronization feature in i>grader, you must run at least one i>clicker session with your students, and your students need to register their i>clicker remotes online as described in Steps 1 and 2 above. 3. After the students have entered their information in Blackboard, launch i>grader, you


will see your session(s), labeled by date, with unmatched names and remote IDs in red on the left. The next step is to match them up (resulting in names listed blue).

Click the “Synchronize Student Web Registrations” button.

Troubleshooting Tip: If you don’t have student names listed, then you have not yet successfully downloaded your roster. Troubleshooting Tip: If you do not see a list of remotes in red on the i>grader main screen, you may not have run a polling session with your students yet. Please run a session in i>clicker before attempting the Web Synchronization function. Troubleshooting Tip: Check to be sure Blackboard is your listed CMS on the lower left corner of the i>grader screen: Output formatted for: Blackboard [Ver 8]. Your course management system was set in your Settings/Preferences selection in i>clicker.

If your students did not register using their Blackboard usernames, you will be prompted to accept or ignore the registration. We recommend jotting down that user’s information and choosing ignore. Then ask the student to register again using the correct information. If a student has already registered a clicker using UO web registration in a different course this term, he or she does not need to do so again. If a clicker is registered to multiple students in your course then only the last registration will be used. Students who enter incorrect information can simply re-register.

E. Optional: Using Roll Call and manual registration

Instead of depending on your students to register their clicker numbers online, you can manually register an individual student’s clicker or can conduct a “roll call” in class and collect clicker numbers. These are sometimes useful approaches for cleaning up special cases or finding stragglers who never got around to registering their clickers on the blackboard site, though roll call registration can require quite a bit of class time. See the i>clicker users guide for details

F. Uploading grades from i>grader into Blackboard

1. After class, when your i>clicker session is complete, open i>grader. To export data from selected sessions, check the box at the top of each column you want to export, next to


the session name or date. Then click “Export Selected Sessions as csv file” from the main i>grader screen. To export the whole term, you can instead click “Export All Sessions,” but we recommend that once you have completed student web registrations you upload one session at a time, typically immediately after class. The scores will be saved in the i>clicker folder for your Class (the same one that contains gb_export.csv) in a file called UploadFile.csv.

Troubleshooting tip: Only one UploadFile.csv can exist in your course folder at a time. If you wish to export data into more than one file during a single i>grader session, move or rename the previously created UploadFile.csv before exporting a different selection of sessions.

2. Log into Blackboard (and into your course) and go back to “Grade Center.” Locate and select “Upload” from the “Work Offline” button.

3. Under “Choose File > Attach local file”

a. Click the Browse button and find the UploadFile.csv file in your i>clicker folder. b. Select it and click Open. It will appear in the field next to the Browse button. Set the

“Delimiter type” to “Comma.” c. Click Submit.

4. On the next screen (“Upload Grades Confirmation”), you will see a list of the i>clicker assignments under the heading “Uploading Column.” Choose the assignments you want to upload using the check boxes in the “Upload” column. Note that if you’ve


exported a single session from i>grader, there will only be one item under this heading. Hit “Submit.”

5. You will now be returned to the main Grade Center page and will see “Success” alerts

detailing the grades and columns that have been added. Click OK. Your students’ i>clicker scores will now be present/saved in your Blackboard 9 grade book.

Troubleshooting tip: grades from i>clicker are sometimes imported as text, perhaps with an extra quotation mark (e.g., 11”) rather than as a number (e.g., 11.0). If you get data like that, click the pulldown menu for the column header of the new data column, choose “Modify Column,” and change the format from Text to Score. Troubleshooting tip: In Blackboard 9 there was a limit to the number of grades that could be uploaded at a time. We think that bug is now eliminated, but if you get an error message when trying to upload grade contact CMET Consulting for assistance. For more information on using i>clicker see the website at http://libweb.uoregon.edu/scis/clickers. Additional instructor documentation is available from http://www.iclicker.com under Support / User Guides. See especially the i>clicker 5.5 User Guide. Any questions? Send them to [email protected] or visit CMET Consulting, 19 Knight Library (346-1942) for assistance.

bb and iclicker at uo -- winter 2012...delete the extra file if you find it: • on a pc, move the...

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