Blackboard Help for Students
How do I get to Blackborard?
What is my username and password?
I've forgotten my password?
What if I have a question or problem with blackboard?
How do I get added to my Blackboard courses?
When are courses created/deleted?
When I try to login, I get the error message "No authentication credentials were provided with the request".
When I try to log in, I get the error message, "An error occured while the system was processing this login request".
I tried to post a Word/Powerpoint/Access/PDF file on Blackboard. When I clicked on it to test it, the file came up as gobbledygook. What happened?
My Blackboard is cluttered with courses, and it's really confusing! What can I do?
How do I get to Blackboard?
There are a few ways to get to Blackboard. You can get to it directly by typing http://blackboard.noctrl.edu into your browser window. You can also click on the Blackboard icon that appears on the North Central College home page. In addition, there is also a link in the 'Quick Links' menu, which can be found on any page on tthe ITS website.
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What is my username and password?
Your username is the new campus standard- first initial, middle initial, last name - all lowercase. Initially , your password is set to NCCxxxxxxx (where xxxxxxx is your seven-digit ID number.) It is important that you change your password as soon as possible.
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I've forgotten my password.
Click the Login button on Blackboard, then click on the Forgot your password? link. You will be asked to provide some basic information. When entering your first and last name, the first letter of each is uppercase, the rest is lowercase. Your username is all lowercase. An email will be sent to your North Central College email address with instructions to make the password change.
Your new password will need to be a minimum of 8 characters long, and contain at least 1 number.
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What if I have a problem or question about Blackboard?
If you have a problem or question about a specific course on Blackboard, talk with your instructor. If you have a technical or general question about Blackboard, please email or call the Help Desk, at extension 5440.
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How do I get added to my Blackboard courses?
All students who are enrolled in a course prior to the Friday before the term starts will be added to the course automatically.
Instructors add students who register late to their courses.
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When are courses created/deleted?
Course Creation/Deletion Schedule:
Old Courses Deleted*: One year after the end of the term
New Courses Added: Five weeks before the start of term.
Students Added: Friday before the first week of the term.
(Interim courses: week 10 of the Fall term)
*If you need to keep a course longer, please send an email to helpdesk@noctrl.edu
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When I try to log in, I get the error message "No authentication credentials were provided with the request".
Blackboard uses Javascript (a.k.a. "Active Scripting") to encrypt your password when it is sent to the Blackboard server. If Javascript is turned off in your browser, you'll get this error.
To turn this back on in Internet Explorer:
1. Go to Tools > Internet Options > Security Tab
2. Click on the "Internet Zone" icon (the globe)
3. Click on the "Custom Level" button at the bottom of the screen
4. Scroll down the page until you see the "Scripting" section
5. Be sure that "Active Scripting" is enabled
When I try to log in, I get the error message "An error occurred while the system was processing this login request."
The most likely reason for getting this error message is an incorrect username or password.
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I tried to post a Word/Powerpoint/Access/PDF file on Blackboard. When I clicked on it to test it, the file came up as gobbledygook. What happened?
Check to make sure that the file extension (.doc/.ppt/.xls/.pdf) on the file is lower-case.
Unfortunately, Blackboard is case-sensitive, so it treats a file with a ".DOC" extension differently from a file with a ".doc" extension, and instructs the browser to display the content as plain text.
Not all browsers obey these instructions, however. In particular, Internet Explorer will ignore them and base how it displays the file solely on the file extension. IE isn't case-sensitive, so the file will display correctly.
We have contacted Blackboard to see if there's some workaround we can put in place to make this work on all browsers.
Until then, however, renaming the file to have a lower-case file extension and reuploading it should solve the problem.
If you can't see the file extensions, choose Tools -> Folder Options from the folder's menubar.
Go to the View tab, and uncheck "Hide file extensions for known file types."
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My Blackboard is cluttered with courses, and it's really confusing! What can I do?
It's pretty easy to only display the courses you want on the main Blackboard page ("My Institution"). Just click on the little yellow pencil icon in the upper right hand corner of the "My Courses" box. This takes you to a screen where you can change which courses will be displayed. (Regardless of what you do here, all courses will still be visible on the "Courses" tab.)
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