Brightspace: Prepare for Conversion: Blackboard Items That Don't Transfer to Brightspace

Learn which Blackboard course elements do not fully convert to Brightspace during a course copy so you can fix missing or altered content, especially in quizzes and discussions, before teaching in the new course site.

Overview

This article outlines Blackboard Tools that do not convert into Brightspace.  

List of Blackboard Tools that do not convert into Brightspace

• Calendar Items
• Groups (Groups exist in Brightspace.  Groups created in Blackboard will not copy over into Brightspace)
• Journal
• Blogs
• Chat Rooms
• Wiki
• Release Conditions
• Glossary
• Checklists (Tasks)
• Competencies (Standards)
• Java applet based equations (blackboard equation editor)
• Test passwords
• Access/PIN for Protected Content
• User Posts in Discussions (Depending on the setting of a config variable – included by default)

Quizzes 

Quiz Types Not Imported

• Calculated question type is not imported
• Drag and Drop / Hot Spot question types are not imported

Quiz Question Library - Random Questions

• In some cases, questions that are designed to be randomized—via a Blackboard question pool—are created in Brightspace, however they are not added to the question library within Brightspace, which is a requirement for random use. This limits the ability to edit the questions. The workaround is to export these questions, import them into the Brightspace question library, and then re-establish the random questions.

Question Titles

• During import, it has been reported that question titles in Blackboard (optional) are not imported into Brightspace question titles (also optional). The severity of the impact of this is based on how instructors have used the title or what the title means to the instructor. Please note that it does not impact the display of the question to the student.
  
  Instructors may have to re-add question titles.

Discussions

Overview

• Discussions in Blackboard take place within a forum. The forum is gradable.
  • Forum
    • Posts (Threads)
• Discussions in Brightspace have an additional level. The topic is gradable. Brightspace topics are equivalent to Blackboard Forums. This additional level allows your instructors to group similar discussions together.
  • Forum
    • Topic
      • Posts (Threads)

Forums with no topics

• Sometimes, Blackboard Forums are not created in Brightspace as topics. This is likely due to the way the discussion tool was used in Blackboard.
• Currently, we don’t automatically detect when a forum is created with no topics.
  To enable this, you will need to create a topic within each Forum, or reorganize the discussions tool to recreate the forum content as topics.

Posts as topics

• Brightspace converts by default, including all “posts” made by all users. This is because many Blackboard instructors post their “questions” using the thread area. By default, Instructors will have to go through each discussion, keep their own, and then remove all others.