Frequently Asked Questions
What is Blackboard Learn?
Blackboard Learn is the digital learning environment with digital courses. A Blackboard-course may exist of announcements, documents, exercises and assessments.
The digital learning environment is now an integrated digital environment. It provides students, through Single Sign-On, with as many important study applications and information resources as possible. This environment is called the Student Portal.
What is the Student Portal?
To a certain extent the Student Portal combats the lack of overview and time-consuming access. The Student Portal is an integrated and personalized digital environment. It provides students, through Single Sign-On, with as many important study applications as possible like: Blackboard-courses, Webmail, Lecture and Exam Schedules, Exam Registration, Study Results, Library Search engine and News.
What is the Study Guide?
The Study Guide is a web application of TiU with all study programme's, courses and lecture- and exam schedules. The Study Guide is available on a public as well as on a personal level. You can find the public version on the Student starting page http://www.tilburguniversity.edu/students under the link .
In the Student Portal you will only find the English term, as this system is mostly in English.
The model below shows you which guides are available in Dutch and English and their corresponding abbreviations.
What is COMAP?
COMAP is a web application of TiU for registering to all kind of activities, such as an interactive lecture, working group or practical seminar. You can find access to COMAP from the My Study Facilities module on the My Study tab in your Student Portal.
How do I get access to the Student Portal?
Students have direct access to the Student Portal through the http://www.tilburguniversity.edu/students target page for students on the Tilburg University website. This page includes a login-button named to log in your personal Student Portal.
When you click you fill in your TiU-username and TiU-password. After access is granted you will be redirected to your personal tab My Study with information for your study.
Why do I get the message Invalid Credentials when I try to log in?
The message Invalid Credentials is displayed when your TiU-username and TiU-password are not recognized.
Please check your credentials again and please check on capital characters. The message does not mean that your account in the Student Portal is incorrect.
Please contact the LIS Service Desk if you can't login after several attempts. Tell them that an error 'Invalid Credentials' is displayed.
How do I change my TiU-password?
You can change your TiU-password online at the self-service page.
What should I do now I forgot my TiU-password?
The LIS Service Desk is able to reset your TiU-password. You have to show an identification card, like a passport or European ID-card.
If you still can receive your TiU-email (because it's still accessible from your mail client) or you did add a second e-mail address, then it possible to reset your TiU-password at the self-service page.
Why is the information in My Week Schedule not complete/empty?
The information in My Week Schedule comes directly from the programme you have selected in the Personal Study Guide. The Personal Study Guide is an application to create your schedule electronically. If the information in My Week Schedule is not correct or empty, then you will need to change the settings in the Personal Study Guide. Click from the module My Study Facilities available on the My Study tab. Then select your programme, subjects, optional subjects and groups.
Please make sure you have selected a group after selecting your programme and courses in the Personal Study Guide. My Week Schedule will only show information if you have checked one or more groups.
The model below shows how your Personal Study Guide feeds the Student Portal with roster data.
How do I select multiple programme's in the Personal Study Guide?
It's possible to choose only one School and one study programme. If you registered for a multiple studies (at the same School or a different one(s)), please select one study programme and School and select all courses from the other studies you want to follow as optional courses. Your selection is not an official registration, but only a method to get data in your schedule modules.
How do I register in a Blackboard-Course Group?
Sorry, answer under construction. Please check this page later.
How do I select a group in the Study Guide?
Sorry, answer under construction. Please check this page later.
How can I register myself in a working group/practical seminar via COMAP?
Sorry, answer under construction. Please check this page later.
How do I enroll in a Blackboard course?
There are two ways to enroll yourself in a Blackboard-course. If you're studying one full study year or programme and you want to enroll for multiple courses at once, we advice you to enroll from the Personal Study Guide. If you only want to enroll in one or two Blackboard-courses, we advice you to enroll from inside the Student Portal.
Enroll from Personal Study Guide
- Log in the Student Portal. You will now enter the My Study tab.
- Click the link in the My Study Facilities module from the My Study tab. You will now enter the Personal Study Guide.
- Click in the upper left corner. You will now enter a programme selection page.
- Select your School and your study programme and click on the button
Two or more studies
It's possible to choose only one School and one study programme. If you registered for a second study (at the same School or a different one), please select one study programme and School and select all courses from the second study you want to follow as optional courses. Your selection is not an official registration, but only a method to get data in your schedule modules.
- Check all courses you want to follow this year and click on the button . You now enter the Personal Study Guide's main window again.
- Click on the link in the upper left corner, if you registered for a second study or want to follow optional courses. You will now enter an index with all courses given at Tilburg University.
- Check all courses that you want to submit to your study programme and click on the button at the end of the page. You will now enter the Personal Study Guide's main window again.
- Click on the link . You will now enter a page with all availabe groups for each course you've selected earlier.
- Check all groups that you want to follow and click on the button . You will now enter the Personal Study Guide's main window again.
Groups
A group can be a an interactive lecture, or a lecture for instance. If you can select more then one group per course, then you will need to choose those groups you will attend to.
Which groups?
Which groups you exactly need to check depends on multiple factors. For instance the programme you registered in and the interactive lectures you assigned for. Generally freshman introduction courses tell you which group you'll need to choose from. In some cases your study programme and groups are already selected automatically. If you have no clue which group(s) to check, then please ask the study desk at your School.
- Click the link . You will now enter an overview for the courses you selected in the Personal Study Guide (PSG) and the Blackboard-courses you are enrolled in the Student Portal.
- Check all checkboxes next to the item for those courses you want to enroll in. You don't need to submit your choice; after checking a box, the system tries to enroll you in a Blackboard-course automatically.
Bb Un-enroll, Deactiveate Bb, Un-enroll impossible
When you are succesfully enrolled in a Blackboard-course, then the item will change to three possible items:
1. : when you uncheck you will be unenrolled from the Blackboard-course,
2. : when you uncheck your enrollment will be deactivated; that means, you still will be enrolled, but the course is not displayed anymore in the My Courses module and you will not receive information from this particular course anymore,
3. : it's not possible to unenroll yourself from the course, the instructor disabled the feature.
Enrollment Bb only by Lecturer
If a course does not contain a checkbox, but only the item , then it is not possible to enroll yourself as a student in the particular course. The so called self-enrollment feature is then deliberatly disabled by the instructor or the IT-department of the School. An instructor disables self-enrollment (automatically) for instance, because the course just started and further enrollment is not necessarily logical due to attendency. The IT-department disables self-enrollment (automatically) to prohobit that students enroll during course maintenance. Generally maintenance is done before the course starts and will be enabled by the lecturer when enrollment is available again. So most of the time there is a logical reason for not to be able to self-enroll, but please contact the instructor if you should be able in your opinion.
Enroll from Student Portal
- Log in the Student Portal. You will enter the My Study tab.
- Click the button ] in the Course Catalog module in the My University tab.
- Fill the name of te course and press . You will now receive a list of all courses that match your keyword.
You can also search on Course ID instead of Course Name. Change the pulldown list option from Name to ID en fill in the Course ID en press . Secondly you can browse through the Schools hierarchy, study tracks and programme⿿s to finally find a course.
- Click on the (double arrows) next to the Course ID en click on . You will now receive an overview of your enrollment which you can confirm.
- Press the button to confirm your enrollment. You will now receive a message Action Succesful or Action Unsuccesful. Click the button to continue. You will now receive the My Study tab. You can find your course enrollment in the My Study tab in the module My Courses in the upper left corner.
Action Unsuccesful
Please contact the LIS Service Desk if you receive the message Action Unsuccesful and you think you should be able to enroll yourself. This message appears most of the time when you were enrolled in the course in the past and unenrolled at a later time. Your enrollment will be deactivated and you will not be able to enroll again. The LIS Service Desk can activate you enrollment again.
Enroll button missing
Sometimes the (double arrows) is not displayed next to the Course ID. The so called self-enrollment feature is then deliberatly disabled by the instructor or the IT-department of the School. An instructor disables self-enrollment (automatically) for instance, because the course just started and further enrollment is not necessarily logical due to attendency. The IT-department disables self-enrollment (automatically) to prohobit that students enroll during course maintenance. Generally maintenance is done before the course starts and will be enabled by the lecturer when enrollment is available again. So most of the time there is a logical reason for not to be able to self-enroll, but please contact the instructor if you should be able in your opinion.
Course not found
Sometime your search request will not show any results. Please search with Course ID to make sure the course does not exist. Courses are sometimes named in English and sometimes in Dutch, Schools have different procedures in this.
If you sure, that you filled in the Course ID and you cannot find exactly the same Course ID, then there's also possibility that the course is not made available to students. The (existing) course is the then disabled by the IT-department of the School reponsible for course management to the particular course.
How do I unenroll myself from a Blackboard course?
In a Blackboard-course an Unenroll Tool is displayed under Tools if the instructor of the course did enable it. The tool is disabled in some courses to keep your enrollment.
Where can I find the module My Organizations?
Add the module My Organizations to a tab via the in the upper left corner of a tab.
How do I adjust the display of My Course Announcements?
Announcements from instructors will be displayed in the module My Course Announcements. Using the in de upper right corner of the module, you can change the settings. Select Today, Last 7 Days, Last 30 Days or All to display only recent or recent and less recent announcements and click to save your change.
How do I receive Announcements by e-mail?
Temporarily this option is disabled. Please wait untill the option is available again.
How do I display all courses in My Courses?
Assuming you have enrolled in all your Blackboard-courses, you need to do the following workaround, to get all your Blackboard-courses to be displayed in the My Courses module.
- Click on the in the upper right corner in the My Courses module
- Uncheck all checkboxes in which you are enrolled and click
- Click again on the in the upper right corner in the My Courses module
- Check all Course Names and My Announcements checkboxes and click
How do I update the content of a module?
Information displayed in the Student Portal mostly comes from other systems. Examples are the Webmail Notifier and My Week Schedule. If you refresh you browser window, then the most recent information will be received and displayed.
How do I change the language of the Student Portal?
Some parts of the Student Portal are available in English and Dutch. To change the language of the Schedule modules My Week Schedule, My Schedule Changes en My Exam Schedule you click on the in the upper right corner of each of these modules. A new page will open will a pull-down list where you can choose your preferred language. Click and click to save your change.
How do I customize Tab Content?
Users can customize the colors in the body of tab.
Follow the steps below to open the Theme selection area.
- Open the tab you want to customize.
- Click on the upper right hand corner.
How do I change the content of a module?
Users can edit, minimize, and remove modules from a tab.
- To edit the content of a module click the located at the top of the module
- To minimize the content of a module click the minus button located at the top of each module. To maximize the module, you lcick on the plus icon .
- To remove a module from the tab click the remove icon located at the top of each module. The module will be removed from the tab only. When you click on in the upper left corner you will see that the module is still available to select
Why do I receive a message while loading a page with video-files?
Microsoft Internet Explorer will show a security warning when you load a Blackboard-page with video-files:
Do you want to view only the webpage content that was delivered securely?
Click No to able to play the video-files.
The security warning will be displayed since all the data traffic with Blackboard is transported through a secure connection, but the video-files are still delivered through an unsecured connection. Only in Internet Explorer there will be a security warning displayed. Other browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox will not.
Why do I receive an error message while loading an audio-file?
When you click on an audio-file with Internet Explorer an error message can be displayed when you use Windows Media Player as the default media player:
Windows Media Player cannot connect to the server. The server name might not be correct, the server might not be available, or your proxy settings might not be correct.
Sometimes it will be preceded by the following error messsage too:
Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file.
There are two solutions to this problem:
- Access the Blackboard-page with a different browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox if you still want to make use of Windows Media Player as your default media player.
- Install a different media player as your default media player like Apple Quicktime or VLC media player if you still want to use Internet Explorer to access the Blackboard-page.
The alternative browsers above will save the file locally first. The alternative media players are being able to play the file through a secured connection.
Why do I receive a message about a 'Missing Plugin'?
De browser dient te beschikken over een audio/video-plugin om audio/video-bestanden af te kunnen spelen. Beschikt de browser niet over audio/video-plugin, dan verschijnt de volgende melding:
No plug-in available to display this content
Selecteer de optie 'browser plugin' bij het installeren van een media speler of voeg de gewenste plugin toe aan de browser wanneer de media speler reeds is geinstalleerd.
Where can I go for additional help?
On Tilburg University you can go to the LIS Service Desk for support on ICT and AV and other education services.
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LIS Service Desk Library Level 1 Telephone: (013) 466 3111 E-mail: lis-servicedesk@uvt.nl |