As mentioned in a previous blog post, there are a few changes being introduced this week to the interface used when marking work submitted to a Blackboard Assignment.

Please note – this change does not affect Turnitin assignments, only Blackboard assignments.

The new Box marking interface will go live at 8 a.m. this Wednesday, 10th January.

There may be a brief period when papers submitted to a Blackboard assignment do not display inside Blackboard – at this time you will see a message saying “this file is being converted”.

Once the transition to the new Box interface is complete, you may sometimes still see this message when opening a submission.

If you experience this, just press your browser’s Refresh / Reload button (F5). The file should then display immediately.

What annotation options are available?

When viewing a student submission you can

• highlight text in the submission
• highlight text and type a text comment
• type a text comment

This short Blackboard video gives a good overview:

Highlighting text

Using your mouse, highlight any text, and a small toolbar appears.

 Click on the pen icon to simply highlight the text.

Click on the speech bubble icon to associate a comment with the highlighted text.

Click Post to save the comment.

Adding free text comments

 Click on the speech bubble icon at the top of the page.

This message will appear.

Now click anywhere in the document, and you can leave a text comment.

Click Post to save the comment.

Supported filetypes

The new Box viewer supports a greater range of files – for instance most image and video files can now be viewed directly inside Blackboard.

Not all files which can be viewed in Blackboard support highlighting / annotations, however. This list of supported filetypes shows which files can be viewed, and which annotated.

Please note that, at present, there are a few common file types – notably Excel and RTF files – which it is not possible to annotate directly in Blackboard.

Box, the third party company which provides the viewing/marking interface, are making constant improvements to their service, so additional functionality is being added on an ongoing basis – and Blackboard are working with Box to see that desired improvements are delivered as early as possible. Blackboard have also emphasised that Box provides

• support for significantly more file types, including audio, video, and image formats
• rore responsive browser support for accessing documents on any device across mobile browsers 
• a more modern, cleaner UI that more seamlessly blends with Blackboard Learn

Additionally, Box is one of the world’s largest SaaS-based content management services, and as a result the New Box View service includes compliance with the strictest security and compliance standards.  

What will happen to feedback previously provided using Crocodoc?

The most important thing to know is that all feedback left using Crocodoc (the previous marking interface) will still be available when we move to Box.

The feedback will continue to be visible – to both staff and students – within Blackboard, and when the marked paper is downloaded as a PDF.

Please note however that, once we move to Box, annotations made using Crocodoc are “burnt in”, and cannot be edited or deleted.

Important notice for staff marking work submitted in December and early January:

In accordance with University policy, feedback on assignments where the submission deadline fell on or before 8th December (the last day of UG term), should have been made available to students by Tuesday 9th January.

However we are aware that there are some Blackboard assignments – particularly those set up for late submission after the due date – where our move to Box falls within the 15 day turnaround period.

If you are still marking work using the Crocodoc interface, please ensure that any annotations made on or before 9th January are in their final version – i.e. make sure that your annotations do not require further editing before they become visible to students.

What is affected / what is not affected

• This change affects only Blackboard assignments. Turnitin assignments are not affected.
• This change affects only annotations made using the inline grading features.
• It does not affect
  • feedback provided via an uploaded feedback file
  • feedback typed into the ‘Feedback to Learner’ area
  • student Grades
• Switching to the new interface is a relatively quick process, and we do not expect it to cause any disruption to students submitting work, or to the Blackboard service as a whole. There may be a brief period after 8 a.m. on 10th January when staff are unable to mark work submitted to Blackboard assignments.

Further questions?

If you have queries relating to this change, please contact the TEL team via the IT Self-Service portal.