Franklin & Marshall College

In this section of the Blackboard @ F&M website we will post known issues with Blackboard and the current level of resolution and workarounds. If you are having difficulty performing a task in Blackboard, check the Known Issues list. If the issue does not appear on the list, please contact the Franklin and Marshall College Blackboard Administrator at ().

Contacting the Blackboard Administrator

Contact the F&M Blackboard Administrator at

• Cut and paste from MS Word to Blackboard
• Failure to Print Blackboard PDFs from Safari
• File Upload Failure
• Frozen Grade Center
• PDF Missing Plug-in error
• Broken YouTube links in Blackboard
• Error when submitting assignments via SafeAssign
• Viewing Journal Entries
• Grade Center weighted column error
• MS Office files naming conventions

• Cut and paste from MS Word to Blackboard

Issue: Formating issues when cutting and pasting from MS Word to Blackboard

Cause: Incompatibility when adding Word and html code into Blackboard

Solution:
You may use one of these workarounds.

1. Paste the content into TextEdit or Notepad first. Copy the content from TextEdit or Notepad then paste into the Blackboard text box.

2. Before pasting content from MS Word into Blackboard, the Blackboard Text Box Editor should be turned OFF.
After pasting, click Submit to complete. You may then edit the item to format the content.

• Failure to Print Blackboard PDFs from Safari

Issue: Users are unable to print Blackboard PDF files from Safari 6.0 on Mac OS X 10.7.4 (Lion)

Cause: Safari 6.0 on Mac OS X 10.7.4 (Lion) is not a Blackboard compatible/certified browser

Solution:
Use a compatible/certified browser. Click here for a list of compatible/certified browsers.

• File Upload Failure

Issue: Faculty is unable to upload a file to Blackboard.

Cause: Occurs when the course file management permissions are not enabled.

Solution:
1. Open the course
2. Navigate to the Control Panel under Course Management
3. Click on Files
4. Click on Course ID. e.g. tfaculty.ITS101
5. The Files page will load
6. Click on the drop-down menu next to the Course ID at the top of the page
7. Click on Permissions. The Manage Permission page will load
8. Click on Add Course User List
9. In section 2, select the Instructor role
10. In section 3, select all the permissions
11. Click Submit to complete

• Frozen Grade Center

Issue: The Grade Center is frozen. The following notice will be displayed.

Cause: Occurs when the column is not saved correctly.

Solution:
1. Open Firefox
2. Follow these steps: Grade Center > Manage > Column Organization > change any one column position > Submit.

• PDF Missing Plug-in error 

Issue: Users receive a "Missing Plug-in error" when opening a PDF file

Cause: This error will occur if your browser is missing a PDF Plug-in

Solution:
This issue has been resolved.

• Broken YouTube links in Blackboard

Issue: Users get a blank screen when they click on an YouTube URL in Blackboard.

Solution:

Set the YouTube URL to open in a new window

or

Embed the YouTube video

1. Find the Video on YouTube
2. Clicking the Embed button below the video.
3. Click the Use old embed code check box.
4. Copy the embed code
5. Enter this code in the VTBE in HTML mode.

or

Use the YouTube Mashup feature

• Error when submitting assignments via SafeAssign

Issue: Users receive the following error message when using SafeAssignments or DirectSubmit.

"Sorry, we do not think you are logged in to SafeAssign. Your session may have timed out. If you have received this message in error, please contact your system administrator."

Solution: Enable cookies for the browser you are using.

For Safari:

1. Click on Safari on the menu
2. Click on Preferences
3. Click on the Security tab and allow cookies
4. Close your browser

For Firefox:

1. Click on Firefox on the menu
2. Click on Preferences
3. Click on the Privacy tab and allow cookies
4. Close your browse

• Viewing Journal Entries

Issue: Some student are not able to view some Journal Entries

Solution: Blackboard Inc. has identified a software defect and will be working to resolve this issue

• Grade Center weighted column error

Issue: Some faculty may get an error when attempting to create a weighted column in the Grade Center

Solution: Switch your Internet browser to Firefox

• MS Office files naming conventions

Issue: Blackboard does not allow file name for assignments with spaces and special characters.

Solution: When naming MS Office (Word, Excel) files for Blackboard upload, please follow these guidelines:

• Do not use special characters like #, &, or @
• Do not use spaces
• You may use the underscore _