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Inline Grading and New Box View Update: March 2018

Blog Post created by tb32012 on Mar 23, 2018

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(this post is a continuation update from my prior post in February 2018)

Edit: 3/27 - Drawing Annotations were enabled for all customers on 3/26, noted by Box in their changelog here.

There has been quite a bit of activity over the past few weeks regarding New Box View, with some good progress being made but also some bumps in the road. Specifically, Box released both Drawing Annotations and "sticky" Point Annotation Mode as promised in early March. Unfortunately, unexpected performance problems were quickly identified with the new Drawing Annotations and Box made the decision to remove the new tools until these issues were remedied. Box has now made progress in fixing the root cause of the performance concerns and have since reenabled sticky Point Annotations and plan to reinstate the Drawing Annotations no later than Tuesday, March 27th. I will update this post once we have confirmed Drawing Annotations have been made available again.

Note: the Box site link above states this, but I wanted to call out that feedback and data created using Drawing Annotations while they were active will be available again when the tool is reenabled – no data will be lost

More broadly, the circumstances of Drawing Annotations mentioned above has highlighted several gaps in communication between Box, Blackboard, and Blackboard clients regarding the timing of changes to the New Box View service. Generally, the flow of information through the community ecosystem is represented as:

(1) Vendor-distributed generalized information

Leads to...

(2) Blackboard-distributed information outlining impact for Bb clients

Leads to...

(3) Bb clients'-distributed targeted information specific for clients' end users' needs

After continued discussions between Blackboard and Box, we have identified several specific actions which will help fulfill the expectations at all points in that communication chain:

Monthly updates from Box to Blackboard with expected changes coming in the next month
Email and publicly reference-able location from Box for monthly updates
Additional end user-facing documentation (e.g. "how does this new feature work?")

These additional activities help reinforce the information in coming from Box in (1); will allow Blackboard to tailor our communications across our established channels (here on the Bb Community Site, on Help.blackboard.com, and through Behind the Blackboard) to meet the needs of (2); and enable the Administrators, Instructional Designers, content creators, facilitators and other end-user facing roles at Blackboard client institutions to be successful at (3).

This additional work continues to strengthen the partnership between Blackboard and Box to provide timely and accurate information to Blackboard clients regarding product updates. We appreciate the community's patience as we work through these actions and look forward to continuing to improve the communication, features, and overall experience of using Inline Grading within Blackboard Learn and the New Box View service.

Outcomes

82 Comments

lsm39@vccs.edu Mar 24, 2018 9:33 AM
Hi Trey,

I have read through the Excel sheet of bugs, and I am experiencing a major bug (as of this morning), that I do not believe has been identified.
Once I highlight text, type comments associated with the highlighted text, and then move on with grading the assignment, the text I have highlighted may or may not show up as highlighted text. Once the assignment is graded, and I move on to another assignment, when I return to the original assignment, not all of the phrases I highlighted and commented on are showing up as highlighted at all unless I hover over the phrase. My students, therefore, are only seeing some of the highlighting, and if they, by chance, happen to hover over non-highlighted phrases that I have commented on, they will see my comments. This is an extremely urgent issue, as I have spent my entire week grading 34 essays and providing feedback (the most critical learning tool of the course) that my students may or may not see (or possibly partially see). I am planning to create a video to beg my students to hover over every word (for past essays I have graded as well) they have submitted, in case I have posted a comment on phrases that are not showing up as highlighted. I know you are working closely with Box and to keep us updated on progress, and I appreciate that.

The lack of feedback I am just realizing my students have been getting from me is a major concern, as it reflects poorly on me as an instructor for a situation that is completely out of my hands.

Thank you, again, for your help.
-Leah Marable
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- katherine.williams @ lsm39@vccs.edu on Mar 28, 2018 9:40 AM
  Leah have you let your IT at your institution know? They should be able to create a case with Blackboard for investigation. I would also check that you have 3rd party cookies enabled in your browser as that can cause display issues.
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- lmateus @ lsm39@vccs.edu on Apr 3, 2018 11:07 AM
  Leah thank you for the information. I just received a complaint from one of our Faculty with his issue with the highlighting feature. I hope all of Box's bugs get fixed soon. I have already had a number of Faculty say that they are no longer using it because of it unpredictable functionality.
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  - rholt @ lmateus on Apr 3, 2018 11:16 AM
    I just used the highlighting tool. It functions a little bit differently than before. You have to highlight what you want highlighted with the cursor on the document and then right-click. This also allows you to select to make an annotation as well. If I remember right, this is how Crocodoc functioned before it switched to solely Box. To draw, you would simply select the drawing tool and draw. It's design is somewhat intuitive in nature for most cloud-based docs such as Google and Word, but it does take a little time to adjust. I hope this helps.
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    - lmateus @ rholt on Apr 3, 2018 11:28 AM
      Thank you Rhonda, I will pass this on to my Instructor and hopefully he has the same results.
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fursty Mar 25, 2018 1:27 PM
As an educator, the removal of most ALL the grading tools is a travesty and simply negligent on BB behalf.

This “exciting” Box API .. has essentially removed all of the tools I used to provide effective grading feedback to my students.
I no longer, can call out items, sections, highlight with different colors, show ALL the comments on one page, print out the annotated submissions etc. There is a long list of functionality that was simply removed by this “exciting“ feature!

This is simply a travesty that has exponentially and negatively impacted my grading time and the ability to provide effective feedback to my students. Students are confused as to how to get feedback..have to scan and look for little blue boxes... really!

This one “exciting feature" negatively impacts me EVERY day….. on over hundreds of grading deliverables every week and is simply short-sighted on BB behalf. The only word that comes to mind is clueless. BB is clueless as to what an educator has to go thru when grading.

If you have any care left for educators…. please fix this.. immediately… bring back the tools we need to do our job effectively; after all that is why we use Blackboard in the first place.
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- rjgoldberg @ fursty on Apr 3, 2018 10:24 AM
  I have had the same experience and the same reaction.
  
  Not only does this make our job more difficult, it is a disservice to our students.
  
  I have been in constant communication with our eLearning Services office, since the start of (really, days before) the spring semester. And they have been receiving complaints from many of the faculty. (And they have been in regular communication with Blackboard about these issues.)
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- jt112 @ fursty on Apr 5, 2018 5:29 AM
  @
  I’m a new user to the Bb Community blog. The version of Blackboard used at Zayed University in the UAE is Learn 9.1 Q4 2017 with Cumulative Update 1.
  
  So far, the updated Blackboard isn’t anywhere near as good as the older version. The current version has a difficult and limited set of editing tools to review and evaluate uploaded student assignments
  
  Posting comments is difficult if, by accident, the user clicks outside the comment box. Then the entire comment and comment box disappear and the user has to start all over again. There is no way of copying the comment, or easily editing it.
  There is no way of closing a comment after posting it other than to click outside the comment box that opens a new comment box which is then deleted. The new box closes the older one.
  There is no way of moving the comment box to a more appropriate location in the document.
  There is no tool that can add text directly to the document, aside from the comment box. This is useful for add-ins, small inserts, and the like.
  There is no strike-out tool that can strike out text in the document.
  
  If I’m wrong on these, please tell me how these issues can be resolved.
  
  Frankly, I found the tools in the earlier versions to be much more useful, and so I agree with earlier entries by Jim Furstenberg and Robert Goldberg on this matter.
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- andrew.caswell @ fursty on Apr 6, 2018 10:23 AM
  At the very least, somebody could give us a timeline for when (or if) these functions will be restored. My students are paying for this service and they are not getting it. If they don't fix this, my students will have to start printing their writing assignments. That is an unfair burden to place on both the students and myself because Blackboard dropped the ball.
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go0054715 Mar 25, 2018 9:23 PM
Hi Trey,

Thank you for following up to establish a clear line of communications regarding the relationship between Box, Blackboard and Us (your clients).

Could you please also announce the timezones when posting dates so we know how to relay this information to our teams.
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casey.eubank Mar 26, 2018 3:18 PM
Hi Trey Buck Trey Buck, will the end-user facing documentation for the new sticky point annotation feature and the drawing annotation feature also be released around Tuesday, March 27th?
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katherine.williams Mar 27, 2018 3:16 PM
Trey Buck we are seeing previous annotations returned along with the ability to draw but I haven't seen an "official" confirmation yet. I would like to be sure everything is ready before I let my users know. Is everything available now?
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- tb32012 @ katherine.williams on Mar 27, 2018 10:45 PM
  Yes! And I updated the post at the top noting this.
  3 people found this helpful
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  - scott.davies @ tb32012 on Mar 28, 2018 3:40 AM
    Hi Trey
    Could future enhancements like this also be announced via BtBb as a new feature / knowledge article?
    Thanks,
    Scott
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  - casey.eubank @ tb32012 on Apr 2, 2018 3:53 PM
    Thank you!
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kb37593 Mar 28, 2018 7:56 AM
Will the Blackboard Help information be updated anytime soon? There are still references to Crocodoc which is confusing if we point faculty to the help page as a resource.
Thank you!
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- rf0040170 @ kb37593 on Apr 4, 2018 6:49 AM
  I wanted to ask the same question. It's very misleading.
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vosough.hengameh Mar 28, 2018 7:57 AM
Trey Buck Hi Trey, The pen tool is back, thank you so much for that, but still there is no annotation tool for Excel assignments. Is it on the list of future enhancements? If yes, is there an ETA?

Thanks,
Hengameh
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- katherine.williams @ vosough.hengameh on Mar 28, 2018 9:35 AM
  Hengameh, Excel annotations are in design and scheduled for release in the first half of 2018. You can find more info if you watch last month's product roadmap webinars here. If you scroll down on Trey's blog post there is also a screenshot of the road map.
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- billblais @ vosough.hengameh on Mar 30, 2018 8:10 AM
  Agreed. The loss of Excel annotation was another big hit that is an ongoing frustration.
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billblais Mar 29, 2018 10:31 AM
This was definitely a step in the right direction, but alongside the (re-)implementation of such features, is there a plan (or an existing way) to overtly push the notice of such changes to users (specifically, instructors)? I imagine this is step 3 in your description, meaning clients are responsible for pushing this news to users, but I want to make sure I'm not missing something -- particularly since this is the kind of thing that we don't seem to have the option to allow/disallow, it seems to me that it should be a notice direct from Blackboard, in addition to any internal/client messaging. Am I missing something?
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krutt.tobi Mar 29, 2018 10:38 AM
Hi Trey,
A couple of requests:
1. In the February 2018 blogpost, you had a link in this line: “Live tracking spreadsheet available here: link”
  The link points to https://onblackboard-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/r/personal/trey_buck_blackboard_com/_layouts/15/Doc.aspx?sourcedoc=%7B6077687a-b93f-4919-ab90-414c008f0a84%7D&action=default.
  I was able to click on this link and open it but the folks at our colleges that I shared it with could not. They were asked to log in using their Microsoft account, but entering what we would normally use as our Office 365 Microsoft credentials did not enable them access to this sheet. Is there some other way this can be shared that will make it more accessible?
2. A little further down in the February blog, in the section labeled “Downloading Documents w/annotations – in design timing TBD by Blackboard” you wrote: “We are targeting this work for Q2 2018, and will confirm timing in the coming weeks.” But the Live Tracking Spreadsheet had not been updated with this info. I do understand that technically this is still "TBD." But since you mentioned the Q2 target in the text, and since this is one of the three most important fixes that our user community has asked for, then if the target really is Q2 then ust adding a note like "target Q2 2018" would be helpful. The more up to date this report is, the more I can provide our faculty with some hope that the issues that care most about are in the works.
Thank you!
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- billblais @ krutt.tobi on Mar 30, 2018 8:09 AM
  I too would like to see the sheet linked above. I currently don't have access.
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Jen.Gregory Mar 29, 2018 10:55 AM
Maybe I'm missing it, but students and faculty want to be able to download the assignments with the comments. (Faculty going up for tenure, accreditation evidence, etc.) Is that possible?
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- katherine.williams @ Jen.Gregory on Mar 29, 2018 11:06 AM
  This is in development with a targeted release in Q2 2018 and coming from Blackboard, not Box. More info towards the end of last month's update. At this time it's not possible.
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klepping Mar 29, 2018 7:54 PM
The restored drawing pencil seems to have these characteristics: (1) when you lift the pencil, your line becomes an object enclosed in a dotted-line rectangle; (2) the rectangle has buttons to Save or X; (3) if you do not click those buttons, but add a new drawing, the rectangle expands as needed to include all the pieces; (4) while the rectangle is open, you can use the “undo” and “redo” buttons to shift through the pieces (though only in the sequence of creation); (5) as soon as you click to Save the rectangle, the visible drawings are frozen in place and cannot be edited or deleted. The last point is inconsistent with the behavior of point comments and highlighting, because those are independently editable and deletable.

The sticky comments behave well, except that I could not make more than one comment stay open at once. Also, the comment box includes the annoying “Reply” box, which makes Instructors think that students might be able to post a response — which is impossible.
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- ukeyream @ klepping on Apr 3, 2018 4:10 AM
  Hi Gene Kleppinger,
  
  I've found that when you come out of drawing mode, you can then click on a drawing to select it and delete (but not move it). Hope that helps a little, appreciate that it's still not ideal!
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  - klepping @ ukeyream on Apr 5, 2018 1:17 PM
    I agree that previous drawings can be deleted (whole rectangular boxes), but the ability to do so is inconsistent (in my trials). Some drawings, especially if they are recent additions, resist being selected again. If you can select the drawing, it's delete-able. And, contrary to my earlier message, it does not matter whether you click the Save button on the drawing. That button can help you "stop" one box before you start another, rather than getting several drawings combined into a single box.
    It's still much too crude to expect instructors to like using it.
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es28628 Apr 2, 2018 11:34 PM
It will be great to have color palettes for the New Box View Inline Grading Pen Tool.
Thanks.
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- scott.davies @ es28628 on Apr 3, 2018 3:35 AM
  Hi Eng,
  This is listed on the idea exchange and is open for voting: New Box View: Change Highlight, Text, and Drawing Annotations Colors
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ukeyream Apr 3, 2018 5:02 AM
Hi Trey Buck, all,

Was there an unexpected Box View outage yesterday (April 2nd)? We suspect that there was.

Our team were out of the office at the time (it was a bank holiday in the UK), but there's been a lot of chatter from the US on Listserve stating that Box View was unavailable during the planned SafeAssign migration. We also had a staff member email us reporting a proxy error when trying to use Box View at the same time:

There's no mention of an outage on the Box View Status page.

Are SafeAssign and Box View somehow linked/dependent on each other, or was it just a co-incidence that they were both offline at the same time? Do we need to plan for Box View outages during future planned SafeAssign outages?

Any information appreciated!

Many thanks,
Amy.
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- es28628 @ ukeyream on Apr 3, 2018 5:08 AM
  I suspect it is related, as the SafeAssign is in migration, any attempt to access the inline grading component for SafeAssign is not available.
  It is not that New Box View is not working, it is just that SafeAssign is in migration.
  All should be working fine now.
  
  Soh Eng Guan
  Senior Technical Manager
  IT Services
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  No 3, Jalan SS 15/8,
  47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor
  Tel: +603 5623 2800 ext 1023
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  Email: engguan.soh@newinti.edu.my<mailto:engguan.soh@newinti.edu.my>
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  INTI. EDUCATION THAT EMPOWERS
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  - taltman @ es28628 on Apr 3, 2018 11:00 AM
    In my support ticket with Blackboard prior to the SafeAssign maintenance, I asked if New Box View would still work during the maintenance, and Blackboard stated, "Yes, the New Box View (rendering and annotations) will still work, these services are not connected to one another other."
    
    My understanding based on fairly extensive conversation in that ticket is that all other Assignment components would work, aside from SafeAssign and the SA Originality Reports.
    
    Trina
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rjgoldberg Apr 3, 2018 10:57 AM
While the inline grading tools (minimal as they are) seem to working smoothly now (I'll learn more on Thursday, when I begin grading a set of assignments), the lack of a feature that allows students to print the instructor's comments is a major disservice to students.

Students cannot effectively review comments and improve their writing when they have to open one comment box at a time and try to remember what each box says. They need to be able to see the comments easily, to review them efficiently, in order to revise and improve their writing.

Is there a plan for this print feature in the future? If not, please make this happen.
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- katherine.williams @ rjgoldberg on Apr 3, 2018 11:38 AM
  This feature is in development from Blackboard (not Box). Trey stated in his february box update that they are targeting for Q2 2018 with timing confirmed "in the coming weeks".
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  - rjgoldberg @ katherine.williams on Apr 16, 2018 9:11 AM
    Hopeful for the print feature, but too late to be useful this semester -- unless it is soon and can benefit students on their final project.
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- rholt @ rjgoldberg on Apr 4, 2018 2:45 PM
  I just got the same question late yesterday. I would like to know if this is going to happen too as it's hard for students to edit without a sure-fire way to either print, or duplicate for a side-by-side split-screen comparison. Many of our students are very old-school in that they like to have a hard copy of comments for referencing, etc. when making edits and/or moving forward.
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rholt Apr 3, 2018 11:01 AM
WAHOO!!! I tested this feature and am excited to report it was successful (I didn't try it with SafeAssign since there was mention of the migration and issues), but I excitedly shared the joy with some of our faculty members who strongly voiced their disgust with the change in January.
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bh0048993 Apr 4, 2018 2:34 PM
I just had an instructor inform me that after adding comments to assignments in the Box View using Firefox, the comments dont minimize if you move your cursor away from the comment pop up or just click cancel. You have to move your cursor over the blue icon before the comment minimizes. This makes it so you can have several comments open at the same time making it difficult to navigate. It seems to work fine with chrome and the comments do not stay open when moving the cursor away from the comment pop up.
Also, It seems that when making sticky comments in both chrome and firefox, you can not move the text cursor
to different areas in the text box by using your mouse, you have to use your arrow keys.
This does not occur when making a reply to a comment already posted.
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- rholt @ bh0048993 on Apr 4, 2018 2:41 PM
  There are also issues when using Adobe Forms and the Firefox Browser. I heard about this issue in a campus meeting yesterday and was told this likely has something to do with how the browser is trying to display PDFs in-browser and impacts performance. I wonder if the processing differences are impacting these functions too. Just a thought.
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- lsheehy7 @ bh0048993 on Apr 9, 2018 10:14 AM
  Hi Ben,
  I have lab assistants that are testing functionality for us. One of them told me that you can use the Refresh button that is on the page to close comments for further grading. Thought it might help.
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dmartin Apr 8, 2018 10:59 PM
A colleague and I were experimenting with grading of assignments using the new box view and couldn't see a way of hiding the annotation and comments to students until assignments from all students have been marked. This would be similar to turnitin's post date function.

Are we missing something or should I add this to the idea exchange?
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- lsheehy7 @ dmartin on Apr 9, 2018 10:10 AM
  Hi David,
  Could this be done by hiding grades from students until the grading is finished? I have had professors who received complaints that students couldn't see the annotated grade because the option to hide grades from students was checked.
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gc0067779 Apr 12, 2018 12:53 AM
Hi Trey
Last year, South Metropolitan TAFE (SMT) transitioned from using Moodle to Blackboard Learn. I have been involved with training lecturers on using Blackboard, in particular with grading/assessing and providing valuable feedback online to the students in a timely manner. There was huge excitement with the introduction to Box, as the inline grading provided lecturers with an efficient way of providing feedback. So our lecturers started using it.

We were made aware that Box, at this point in time, can not print/download any annotations made. Lecturers did not mind this as both lecturers and students could just view the feedback/comments online. However, what was not made clear, was that when Archiving a Blackboard course the annotations are not saved. Our process at SMT is to 're-use' our Blackboard shells each semester via a housekeeping process of Backing up Shells at the end of each delivery period, unenrolling students, updating the shell and then enrol new students.

As part of the Standards for RTOs 2015, lecturers need to save the Grades and Feedback for a minimum of 6 months after the course has finished, so we require to Archive and Restore Blackboard shells when required.
You can see our dilemma when we found out that Box annotations do not get saved!

At this point in time, the eLearning team at SMT have notified all our lecturers with a workaround which involves lecturers copying and pasting their comments from Box into Blackboards "Feedback to learners" area. This is doubling up work for lecturers.

We are still requiring Box to find a permanent solution to this problem where we can download annotated PDFs (just like we could with Crocodocs) as well as be able to save the inline grading comments when backing up/Archiving a Blackboard shell.

Looking forward to hearing about any updates and progress towards achieving a permanent solution.
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- rholt @ gc0067779 on Apr 12, 2018 11:24 AM
  That's unfortunate and nice to note the annotations are not backed up during archiving. This really should be more forwardly communicated because I assumed an "archive” was just that… a copy preserved like a time-capsule to encompass everything from the course at that snapshot's point in time. Thanks for the heads up.
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  - gc0067779 @ rholt on Apr 12, 2018 8:27 PM
    Exactly my thoughts!
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- katherine.williams @ gc0067779 on Apr 12, 2018 2:32 PM
  Grazia, annotations not being kept in a restored course was an issue with crocodoc as well, check article 000037416 from 2014. It was marked as functioning as designed.
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  - rholt @ katherine.williams on Apr 12, 2018 3:01 PM
    Kathy… oh… thank you! I was unaware, so this is good information of which to be aware.
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  - gc0067779 @ katherine.williams on Apr 12, 2018 8:35 PM
    Hi Kathy. Thanks for the article from 2014. I did read this article earlier this year, and as you stated, they were looking at developing the functionality of saving the annotations so they can be restored. That was 3 years ago! You would have thought they would have developed that functionality by 2018?
    
    SMT lecturers only started to use Blackboard this year with their students, so they never used Crocodocs.
    Unfortunately our organisation did not realise that Crocodocs did not store annotations in restored files until early this year. However, we were aware that Crocodocs you could print/download annotations. Our lecturers were OK with just having the functionality of printing/downloading annotations and we were assuming that Box will also have this ability. When we were advised that Box had different functionalities, and told what it could/could not do compared to Crocodocs, it was not clear that it could not keep the annotations in restored courses, just like Crocodocs. It would have been nice if it was clearly stated somewhere when comparing the two tools that annotations will not be kept in restored files in both.
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    - katherine.williams @ gc0067779 on Apr 16, 2018 12:32 PM
      Blackboard is working on the annotated file download and as far as I know it's still on track to be delivered in the first half of 2018 (though time is running out). Annotations not restoring from an archive is functioning as designed so they probably aren't working to change that.
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rh22333 Apr 13, 2018 10:37 AM
Any updates as we enter the last weeks of the semester here and assignments needing to be graded will increase tremendously? We are ending the third month since the change to New Box View.
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- vosough.hengameh @ rh22333 on Apr 13, 2018 3:23 PM
  Well, the pen tool came out late March. So, it is not really three months since the last enhancement but I am receiving complaints too. For example, a Grader was complaining today about losing the strikeout tool and how using the pen tool and comment box instead of strikeout and typing in a word has added to her work and is not as efficient either.
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rjgoldberg Apr 18, 2018 9:21 AM
I may have missed this, but the drawing tool, while *nice*, needs to be more robust and effective.

Are there any plans to allow not just different pen colors, but different (I don't know the right word) widths?

Perhaps more critical, is there any plan to also allow comments added, as with the highlighter feature (which, as has been stated, needs multiple color options)? To have to use a drawing tool to circle something and then to have to use the point comment to add a comment is rather cumbersome and time consuming.

Please help us, the instructors, make it easier for student to see and learn and improve as writers.

- Bob
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rxswift Apr 18, 2018 6:17 PM
There is a lot of talk here about great features in the New Box View but I am aghast!!! I cannot even see my student documents in Box View even If I wished to annotate - which I do not. I just want to see the documents instead of having to download them to grade.

I can't even get to coursesites.com support chat - "server error"- to begin to remedy this. Is there any help available?

I created 3 new classes hoping this would update my situation but it does not.
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- katherine.williams @ rxswift on Apr 18, 2018 6:37 PM
  Rick, if no documents load in the viewer then there are three main possibilities, in order of likelihood.
  
  1. 3rd party cookies are not enabled in your browser.
  2. The file types are not supported by box.
  3. Box is not set up or not set up correctly on course sites.
  
  Can you check if third party cookies are enabled in your browser and if they are, what file types are being submitted? What does the page look like when you attempt to view the submission?
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  - rxswift @ katherine.williams on Apr 19, 2018 1:19 PM
    I am using Google Chrome.
    We are on Windows 7.
    And on a Mac at home.
    Third party cookies are accepted.
    WORD is the only file type.
    
    My students can submit and I see a square box
    with the file name and type inside and download at the bottom.
    
    I am not sure what to do to set up Course Sites.
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    - katherine.williams @ rxswift on Apr 19, 2018 1:20 PM
      Setting up course sites is not something you would do, it's something the admins would have done. I assume it works but I don't use course sites so I'm not positive. Can you attach a screenshot of how the page appears when you attempt to view submissions? You can PM it to me if you prefer not to post it.
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    - rxswift @ rxswift on Apr 19, 2018 1:29 PM
      Submit View
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      - rholt @ rxswift on Apr 19, 2018 2:12 PM
        I posted an earlier reply in this thread, but here ya go…:
        I had a professor experiencing the same issue, and no matter how many times we refreshed, checked the browser, restarted the computer, it kept doing the same darn thing! All we could get was an almost complete screen with this image before it even loaded all the way:
        Here's how we fixed it:
        1.    Click on the icon in the upper right-hand corner of the Chrome Browser to check out settings (not sure what it's called, but it looks like this):
        2.    Click on Settings in the drop-down menu that appears:
        3.    Scroll to the bottom of the window that appears, and click on the Advanced drop-down icon:
        4.    Scroll down to the Privacy and Security section and look for the Content Settings area and click it to expand your options:
        5.    Click the Cookies button to expand and view more options involving your cookies:
        6.    Check the Block third-partycookies section to make sure you do not have them blocked as Box View will not work.
        o    If your screen looks like the image below, you will want to click the blue button encircled to turn off the block
        If your screen looks like the image below, you may have another problem, or you successfully changed the settings.
        
        I hope this helps you.
        ~Rhonda
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        rholt @ rholt on Apr 19, 2018 2:18 PM
        Apparently my thread was in a different discussion board, but this was a similar issue and I thought my cookies were fine too, but apparently it does its own thing sometimes and depends on the settings/whose account is signed into the Google browser, so you might give it a try.
        ~Rhonda
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      - katherine.williams @ rxswift on Apr 19, 2018 2:33 PM
        Rick, I checked on coursesites and from what I can tell they do NOT have the box viewer turned on or set up. As long as it's turned off you won't be able to view or annotate anything and you'll need to download each file. I would recommend that you call coursesites at their listed support number and see if they plan to turn it on. If your institution expects you to grade online, I assume they have an LMS solution for you (other than coursesites) that you may consider using.
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      - katherine.williams @ rxswift on Apr 19, 2018 2:42 PM
        OK, I talked with support for coursesites and they confirmed that Box View is not turned on but should be enabled "at some point in 2018". If you haven't already I would look outside of coursesites for LMS options, like to something your institution offers.
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        rxswift @ katherine.williams on Apr 19, 2018 3:32 PM
        Thank you, Kathy. It's just disappointing that Blackboard would make such drastic changes while teachers are in the midst of working with classes. Why couldn't you have waited until Summer when there are fewer classes and more potential to troubleshoot issues with a smaller community.
        
        It just isn't practical to find a new LMS to work with in the last 40 days of school. I realize Coursesites users are at the end of the line of users within Blackboard but it is still critical for us K-12 teachers to have a working system.
        
        Thank you for your time.
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susan.wildon Apr 19, 2018 11:34 AM
I am having difficulty with the automatic appearance and placement of the "SAVE/DELETE" button. I cannot write something as simple as a fraction without hitting delete when I try to write underneath my first line. This is very frustrating - even an equal sign forces me to draw one bar, save, and then draw the second bar underneath.
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schlater.david Apr 25, 2018 2:16 PM
Some feedback from a faculty member:

Copy-pasting from “Box”: I typically copy a students thesis statement from the essay and quote it back to them in their feedback so I can demonstrate areas where they can edit or improve it. Since the new “box” online editing tools were deployed any text I copy from an essay onto the clip board goes from this:

…which then has to be manually reformatted to get rid of all of the extraneous line breaks this once simple process has now inserted.
In short, I end up having to re-write the student’s thesis out for them.
I have approximately 75 students and they produce 4 essays a semester, so this is a job that I have to repeat approximately 300 times.
I have basically given up on providing feedback in a timely manner because the process now takes far longer.

Highlighting text and typing in-text comments. As I edit essays I want to highlight sections of text (often several sentences at a time). I used to be able to click and drag my cursor across the area and I would then be able to highlight the text. With the updated tools I am clicking, dragging, clicking, losing the highlighter, losing the cursor, clicking, CLICKING..! etc Occasionally I will be able to select the area I want first time, but usually it takes numerous frustrating attempts and failures, or I have to try to stick two sections together by overlapping highlighter - this is so much extra work you guys!

Hang on though, we’re not done yet because once I’ve highlighted the text I want to provide a comment in a little box that pops up. Unless my comment is a few words or a short sentence it will usually just disappear as I am trying write it. Am I just supposed to use emojis or something? Giving student feedback means providing clear, detailed guidance on how to solve problems with argumentation, sentence structure, or more in-depth analytical issues. Imagine trying to think on your feet over the course of 70 essays and give each student the feedback they need in numerous instances so that they can find their own solutions. Imagine then trying to do that while using tools that consistently glitch, and make your words vanish. These tools are the worst.
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rh22333 Apr 26, 2018 1:27 PM
Well, we are approaching the end of our semester and have not heard anything about additional work being done on the NBV inline grading tool. I do not want anything new and unproven to be released right now because of the tight timeline we now have. However, it would be good to know that work is still progressing, etc.

Rick Hazlewood
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tomib May 8, 2018 3:42 AM
Dear all,
Does anyone know, if there is a progress on that?
We (instuctors/ departments/ educational units) can get serious law issues, if our inline comments are not saved after the course is finished.
That's not a trivial thing.
Thomas
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rh22333 May 9, 2018 11:28 AM
From a professor this morning. I am not looking forward to this exchange of emails. Will the comments made this semester ever be downloadable?

Hello,

Since the inline PDF viewer on Compass has moved to box, I don?t see a way to download a PDF that contains a student?s assignments and the feedback notes from the grader. Is there a way to combine these? We are supposed to export this data for ABET accreditation.

Screenshot attached. It seems neither down-arrow download link (box toolbar nor ?submission? pane) saves the feedback.

Thanks,
Daniel
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- katherine.williams @ rh22333 on May 9, 2018 11:33 AM
  The last updates from Feb/March had downloads including annotation on track for the first half of 2018......but the fact that we haven't had any updates or news for a bit makes me doubt that timeline. I'm just hoping for sometime in 2018 at this point
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  - scott.davies @ katherine.williams on May 10, 2018 2:05 AM
    Hi Kathy,
    Last I heard was that it was an estimated date of Q2 / Q3 and from previous experience it would be the end of those dates so I'd be expecting end of June but more likely Sept. What was your source to say 1st half?
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    - katherine.williams @ scott.davies on May 10, 2018 9:32 AM
      It was in the one of the webinars but I don't think I saw it posted anywhere afterwards, so maybe it wasn't correct or was just a hopeful timeline.
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- shcohen @ rh22333 on Oct 19, 2018 12:49 PM
  Hi Rick (and Kathy, and Scott),
  
  Has anybody ever found out when we might be able to save annotated assignments as a pdf?
  
  As with Rick's original question, this issue has considerable legal ramifications, especially when accreditation and/or personnel decisions are concerned. I'd hate to see the day when a professor who was denied tenure sues the college for not being able to share what is their own intellectual property to demonstrate the extent of their engagement and potentially retain their job.
  
  I'm new to this site, but running a search on this issue yields results that are close to 4 years old. To my mind, this signifies a rather low priority on the part of Blackboard and/or Box.Net.
  
  Alternatively/ Additionally, I wonder if anybody has contact information for a corporate representative for this issue? I'm but a lowly professor, but I have friends who may know how to convey this point in a language that corporations understand.
  
  Any lead on the matter will be greatly appreciated!
  
  Cheers,
  Sc
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  - katherine.williams @ shcohen on Oct 19, 2018 2:27 PM
    If your institution has upgraded to one of these versions, downloading annotations are available (or on Saas):
    Q2 2017 CU9 – 3200.0.9
    Q4 2017 CU4 – 3300.0.4
    Q2 2018 CU3 – 3400.0.3
    For us it came out too close to our fall semester so we won't be upgrading until winter break and I haven't personally used it, but heard it's working more or less as expected. Your institution should be able to give you more info about when they will upgrade.
    
    The download option existed in Crocodoc (which was decommissioned in Jan 2018), so we really only went about 8 months or so without the option to download. I think some of the previous posts you saw were problems with the annotated file itself - I know for a long time chrome didn't display the annotations inline and the file had to be opened in reader, which caused a lot of confusion and users thinking the file didn't contain the annotations.
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rjgoldberg Jun 19, 2018 7:09 PM
Is anyone else having problems with the highlight tool?

I'm running the most current version of Firefox (60.0.2) on a Win 10 pc.

The highlight tool does nothing -- I drag it across a word. As I'm dragging, it shows purple, but it won't highlight and stay highlighted. I have also tried double-clicking on a word. Nothing.

I am resorting to the "draw" tool, to underline or draw a circle around a word or phrase, and then using the "point comment" tool to actually add a comment.

I am wondering if this is related to the newest version of Firefox (same thing happens on my laptop). Seems to me that on my pc at school, which is using something like Firefox 45, the highlighter works.

I'm baffled and annoyed.

- Bob
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- mr35101 @ rjgoldberg on Jun 20, 2018 4:55 PM
  would the upgrade have reset the "allow 3rd party cookies" setting?
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  - rjgoldberg @ mr35101 on Jun 22, 2018 8:28 AM
    Not in my case; it is still set to "allow third-party cookies and site date" [Always].
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    - mr35101 @ rjgoldberg on Jun 26, 2018 4:18 PM
      I just checked and I don't even see the highlight tool available. Was it take away?
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      - rjgoldberg @ mr35101 on Jun 27, 2018 9:52 AM
        The actual highlight tool that was used in Crocodoc disappeared when Box was implemented. Instead, you simply mark the text (as you would in Word), and then select highlight (only color available is yellow); then, you would get a message to post a comment. That's what is no longer working for me.
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toby Aug 3, 2018 2:50 PM
Ever since the new drawing tool for box was released I have been EXTREMELY dissatisfied and frustrated. I teach organic chemistry and drawing or correcting chemical structures on uploaded assignments is critical. This tool and the "save/delete" pop up drives me crazy. Every time I pick up my pen, this pops up and if I continue to draw, there are fragmented lines and/or it simply will not write. The "save/delete" box is often in the way of drawing/adding elements to the structures which requires me to save over and over and over again just to finish one small part. I cannot provide timely feedback in this manner. It would also be ideal if I could change the color of the pen. I now record global feedback videos of me working through these assignments as a supplement to grading as a direct result of the major UNTIMELINESS this tool has brought on.
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rjgoldberg Aug 15, 2018 9:32 AM
So, I haven't seen any new comments since early August (and that was still about issues).

Does anyone know if any of our issues have been addressed/fixed? Is there info posted somewhere that I haven't seen/don't know about?

I mean, for my school, classes start in a week and a half. I know others have started or will be starting next week. I'd really like to know if the inline grading is going to work at least the way it did with Crocodoc.

Anyone?
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- ukeyream @ rjgoldberg on Aug 15, 2018 9:43 AM
  Hi Robert - If you take a look at Trey Buck's profile you'll see that he's posted a number of follow up blog posts (with comment chains) around Box. July is the latest one.
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  - rjgoldberg @ ukeyream on Aug 15, 2018 10:53 AM
    Thanks. (Actually, just got a link to the July blog from my eLearning Services office.) Of course, the only thing addressed is the ability to download PDFs with annotations. This is a good thing, of course, but our eLearning Services office must first install it on the test server to see if it works, before installing it into the main server . . . still waiting on the timeline, but I have a feeling we won't see any of this functionality until spring.
    
    I still don't see anything about some of the other tools, such as the drawing tool (limited to one color and size) or the function of the comment, highlighter, and point comment tools.
    
    Oh, well . . . that's progress.
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