Blackboard Student Help

A. You can access Blackboard through login.fitchburgstate.edu or directly at blackboard.fitchburgstate.edu.  Enter your University Credentials (formerly Falcon Key).

A. There are a few reasons why your course might not be listed in Blackboard.

• After you have officially enrolled in a course it can take up to 12 hours for the update to be made in Blackboard.
• Your instructor might need to make the Blackboard course site "Available" to the class.
• Be sure that payment for your course has been made. Contact Student Accounts if you have questions regarding payments options.

A. All official campus email communications must use the fitchburgstate.edu or student.fitchburgstate.edu email addresses. Blackboard is automatically populated with your campus email address. To check the email address associated with your Blackboard profile follow the steps below:

1. Login to Blackboard
2. Click the "Personal Information" link on the "My Fitchburg State" tab.
3. Choose "Edit Personal Information."

In some cases an email address will show up incorrectly as unknown@fitchburgstate.edu. If this happens you should contact the Help Desk at 978.665.4500 to have this information updated.

A. There are three actions you can take after entering a new Discussion Board posting--Cancel, Save Draft and Submit. Click the Cancel button if you do not want to add a post and click Submit if you would like your message to be added to the Discussion Board forum. If you would like to save your posting as a draft to review later, click the Save Draft button. To retrieve your draft follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Discussion Board and choose the forum that you created the draft in.
2. In the "Display" drop-down box choose "Show All." You should now see all published posts as well as your drafts. Note: The "Display" option is only available in "List View" mode. Drafts are automatically displayed in "Tree View" mode.

1. Make sure that the computer you plan to use during the quiz is stable and free of spyware, and/or viruses. Visit our Antivirus and Computer Maintenance page for tips and tools that will assist in keeping your computer in good health.
2. Click only once on a link or button to open a Blackboard quiz.
3. Click the Save button periodically to establish a connection with the Blackboard server. This will help prevent your ISP from timing out due to inactivity.
4. Be careful when using the scroll wheel if your mouse has one. First, click a blank area in the quiz, and then use the scroll wheel. Otherwise, you may accidentally change some of your answers.
5. Do not click the Back or Refresh buttons in your browser while taking a quiz.
6. Type answers to longer essay questions in a word processor then copy and paste your text into the appropriate question box in Blackboard. By doing this you will have a copy of your answers just in case you lose your Internet connection and need to retake the quiz.
   NOTE: Avoid using Microsoft Word to record answers to essay questions. If you must use Word, copy and paste your text into another word processor like WordPad or Notepad before you copy and paste into Blackboard. This will prevent extra formatting and code that Microsoft products create from entering Blackboard and causing issues.
7. When finished with the quiz, click the Submit button one time only and give Blackboard a few minutes to complete the submission process. You will receive a confirmation screen when your quiz has been submitted successfully.
   NOTE: If you do not receive a confirmation screen, contact your instructor immediately.
8. If you receive an error message, write it down exactly as it reads or take a screenshot using your computer's software or your phone. Also note the exact time and date of the problem, the web browser you were using, exactly what you were doing when the error occurred, and any other relevant details you can recall.

A. Be sure to check your Spam folder within Gmail. If you don't see this folder click the "More" option in the left column of Gmail. If the message is there you will need to mark the message as safe and/or unblock the sender. These options can be seen within the email message.

If you are still not able to locate your instructor's messages please open a ticket with the Help Desk for further research.

A. When using Microsoft Edge, you may encounter a 404 error when clicking on certain files. The following are workarounds for this issue:

• Switch to a different web browser.
• Use a Private/Incognito browser window.
• Right-click on the link and choose "Save Link As..."
• Disable opening MS Office files in the Edge browser window by clicking the three dots at the top right of the window. Next choose Settings > Downloads and turn off the setting "Open Office files in the browser."