Best Practices

Online Exams: Strategies to Minimize Cheating (PDF)
This list provides a variety of ways to make your tests more secure.

Course Syllabus Templates
Whether you teach a face-to-face course or fully online, the syllabus is an essential tool for guiding students through the structure and requirements of your course.

How-To Guides

Quik Ref: SacCT 9.1 Faculty Guide (pdf)
A short guide for faculty new to SacCT 9.1.

Adding a Test Student (PDF)
Learn how to add a test student to each of your courses in SacCT 9.1.

Creating Extended-Time Tests (PDF)
Create copies of your tests that have a longer duration for students who require more time due to special needs (learning or physical disability).

Export/Import Tests Between SacCT Courses (PDF)
Copy tests, surveys or question pools between courses using the Export/Import option in SacCT 9.1. You can also use the Export/Import option to share assessments with other course instructors. NOTE: Tests with Question Sets are currently not imported properly - please use Respondus instead.

Grade Center - Categories (PDF)
Categories are helpful with consolidating the grading columns, especially when you want to weigh the students' grades.

Grade Center - Drop Grades (PDF)
Dropping the lowest grade is a four-step process in the Full Grade Center. View step-by-step direction how to drop grades.

Grade Center - Enter Grades (PDF)
Enter grades fast. View more about how to enter grades, the total column, and the Grade Information Bar.

Grade Center - Histories (PDF)
The Grade Center keeps a consecutively history of every grade and every change. The history shows who did the change and when.

Grade Center - Grading Periods (PDF)
Grading Periods are a way to organize your columns into manageable periods if you have numerous grading columns.

Grade Center - Letter Grades (PDF)
Customize the default-grading schema of Blackboard to accommodate the course grading settings.

Grade Center - Manage Columns (PDF)
Organize the columns in the Full Grade Center of your course in a sequential order of how the scores are entered.

Grade Center - Text Columns (PDF)
Create a column that contains non-grade information.

Grade Center - Upload/Download Grades (PDF)
Upload or download grades to/from the Grade Center.

SacCT 9.1: Online Assignments - Instructors (pdf)
Learn how to create online Assignments in SacCT 9.1 for students to complete and turn in through your course.

Preserving Student Information from SacCT
When a course is migrated from SacCT to SacCT 9.1 the student information IS NOT migrated. If you want to preserve student information from an old SacCT course (e.g. assignments and assessments submitted, email messages, discussion posts), please follow the steps at the link above.

Rubrics (PDF)
Instructors may use rubrics to explain the evaluation process to students. Associate rubrics with blogs, wikis, discussion boards, assignments, short answers, essay questions in tests or pools, and even file responses.

Training Manuals

SacCT 9.1: Migrating an Existing SacCT Course (PDF)
This document provides an overview of the changes in the new version of SacCT and where to find resources to get you up-to-speed quickly.

• See also Getting Started with a Moved Course from WebCT (PDF) [Blackboard]

Respondus: Creating Tests for SacCT 9.1 (PDF)
Use Respondus to convert a single quiz or exam from WebCT to Blackboard, and then upload that new test to SacCT 9.1.

• NOTE: If you use Repondus to connect to SacCT from off-campus, you need to first use SacVPN to connect to the campus network. See instructions at the SacVPN site.

Respondus LockDown Browser for SacCT 9.1
Start here to use Respondus LockDown Browser to secure online tests.

SacCT 9.1 Quick Start (PDF)
Learn how to get started creating a SacCT 9.1 course. Become familiar with the SacCT 9.1 interface, learn how to add and manage content and how to use key tools in a course.

SacCT 9.1 Communication Tools (PDF)
Learn how to use several SacCT 9.1 communication tools which include: Messages, Send Email, Announcements, Calendar, Discussion Board and Blogs.

SacCT 9.1: Online Tests (PDF)
Learn the basics for creating a test and survey.

SacCT 9.1 Groups and Collaboration
Students now are living in a sharing culture, where involvement with others is not a foreign concept. Social Media is an integrated part of many students' life. Which bring the groups tool in SacCT 9.1 to a means where students who grapple with difficult or interesting questions, can collaborate, and have peer-to-peer interaction, this may very well offer an inclusive learning experience.