Students

View the following JING screencast showing how to use the Add/Send functions within the Blackboard Digital Dropbox: http://screencast.com/t/ovbu4hVh3sw

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Two common errors that occur when using the Digital Dropbox in Blackboard are:

• Adding, but not Sending a file
• Using special characters to name a file

Adding but not sending a file:

I think this problem results because of a misunderstanding of how the Dropbox actually works.  When you use the “Add File” function, it is more like you are putting a letter in your own mailbox.  Unless you “put the flag up,” by also using the “Send File” function, your document just sits there in your mailbox.   When you use the “Add File” option, you have to complete the process (at some point), by also clicking on “Send File,”  selecting the file you want to send, and then Submitting it.

However, you can use the “Send File” option to both add a file to the Dropbox, and to also send it, all in the same process.

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Using special characters to name a file:

Blackboard is less forgiving than Windows when it comes to which special characters you can use to name your files.  In Blackboard it is only safe to use the hyphen “-” and the underscore “_” special characters in your file names.  Letters of the alphabet, both capitals and lowercase, and numbers including 0-9 are acceptable also.

So, naming a file “Homework1.docx” (without the quotes) is acceptable in Blackboard, but “Homework#1.docx” is not acceptable because of the special character “#”.

*You don’t need to know this, but if you want to know “why” not to use certain special characters in your file names in Blackboard…  The Blackboard database that keeps track of all the documents, exams, discussion board entries, etc. doesn’t know how to use certain special characters, and isn’t smart enough, sometimes, to tell you not to use certain special characters.  Blackboard might let you send a file named “Chapter#1.docx” via the Dropbox, but later when your professor clicks on the link to your file they get a “404 File Not Found” error message.  In essence, the Blackboard database lost track of your document because of the special character in the file name.  **What do you do if this happens? Rename your file, without the special character(s) and Send File again.

Characters you can use in a file name for Blackboard:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
0123456789
-_

Characters you should not use in a file name for Blackboard:

!@#$%^&*()+=}{[]:”;’<>,.?/|\

Acceptable file name for Blackboard:

Chapter1

Not an acceptable file name for Blackboard:

Chapter#1

I was attempting to upload a Word document as an assignment, and received the following error message:

At first I thought I might have had a special character in the file name, and/or perhaps the file name was too long.  I tried making it simpler, but still got the above message.

I was using the latest version of Firefox, version 3.5.7, so I decided to switch to the Internet Explorer browser, version 7.0.xxx.  I had no problem uploading the file.

Apparently, the latest version of the Firefox browser was causing the problem.  The Blackboard Helpdesk (Presidium Learning) suggested that I uninstall Firefox 3.5.7 and install version 3.0 of that browser.