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Directory
ID, Password, e-Mail and Browser Related Issues:
Blackboard Login URL:
http://bb.rhsmith.umd.edu (for Business
school users.)
Important UM
Directory Account Password Policy:
All new UM Directory passwords remain valid for up to 180 days.
If you allow your password to expire, you will be
unable to access the many services that utilize the Directory password.
Change your password by visiting
http://www.oit.umd.edu/password/ and clicking the Update Your
Directory Password button at the left of the page (at
https://directory.umd.edu/password).
Please check our Blackboard support site home page for
details.
Campus OIT helpdesk can be reached at 301-405-1500 for any Directory ID
and Password issues.
Find
Login ID or University Directory ID
- New Users and All Current Users:
The Blackboard system and Business school Portal login uses University Directory ID
(also known as LDAP ID) and password.
All users who registered a UM course will get a Directory account, no matter
where you come from. To find your Directory ID, go to campus Directory
system website at
http://directory.umd.edu/,
press on
Search for Your University Directory Entry,
it opens the "Identity Verification" page (as the
image below). Fill out the form
by supplying: The Last Five Digits of Your SSN (or SID for
International students), Your Date of Birth,
and Your Last Name
(Note: sometimes
the form does not work well the first time you try, so you may need to submit the form
Twice!). Upon submission, you will see the Directory
Information page which including Directory ID, U ID, and your real or forwarding
Email address in the list, etc.
More on Find
Directory ID - for Faculty/Staff/Ph.D:
Faculty, Staff and Ph.D Students can also
find their Directory ID by following on
the link of "Search the University
Directory by Name" in the Directory
system, it goes to
http://directory.umd.edu/search. You can search by name, phone, or email.
Active your Directory Account and Set Password
-- New Users
and All:
The
Blackboard and Portal login uses your University Directory ID and password. If
you have never set your password in the Directory system before, you need to set
it online first. It is you or the user's responsibility to set and reset
password for yourself.
To
set your Directory password as a new user, go to UM Directory system at
http://directory.umd.edu/, hit on "Set
Your University Directory Password", it goes to "Identity Verification"
page, it looks the same
as above in find Directory ID
section.
Enter The Last Five Digits of Your SSN (or SID for International students), Your Date of Birth, and
Your Last Name
(Note: sometimes
the form does not work well the first time you try, so you may need to submit the form
Twice!). Upon submission, if you never activated or confirmed your Directory, you will see an
"ID Setup" page as below with an assigned ID. Hit on the "Use
Assigned ID"
button to active your account and follow the screen to setup your password. Or
you can check and use a different ID as you like.
If
you already has an ID and have ever
activated it, you
should see a confirmation page says
"Congratulations! We have confirmed your
identity. Please enter your new
password." Type in your Password twice,
hit Update button.
Then your password is set! And you can
try access BB system now at
http://bb.rhsmith.umd.edu.
Please setup Security questions as
prompt, in case you may forget your password in the future.
Change Directory Password
- All Current Users:
You can change or reset your Directory password as long as you remember your
current or even expired password. Since the password is valid for
up to 180 days Only, you must reset your password in order to access Blackboard,
eSmith Portal as well as some other university systems. You will be required to
use a different password (you cannot use any of the past 20 passwords you have
used in Directory system).
To change your password, go to
http://directory.umd.edu/, select "Change Your
University Directory Password", enter your Directory ID, your current
password, and your new password twice, and hit on "Update" button.
Please setup Security questions as
prompt, in case you may forget your password in the future.
If you forgot your current Directory
password and have not setup Security
questions before, you will need to make
a call by yourself to
campus OIT Helpdesk at 301-405-1500,
they can help and allow you to set a new
password in
http://directory.umd.edu.
Set/Change Forwarding Email Address in Directory
Account
- Faculty/Staff/Ph.D:
Messages posted through Blackboard courses will be send to your Directory email
account (DirectoryID@umd.edu), which is actually an alias email address. They will
then be forwarded to your real or primary email address if you have one setup in your Directory
account. So you will need to setup a Forwarding or real email address in your
Directory account, and it
is important to keep your forwarding Email address
up-to-date so that you won't miss the messages you or students sent from the
Blackboard system.
To
set or change the forwarding Email address in your Directory account, go to ARES
system at
http://www.ares.umd.edu. Click "Change your
official email address" on the right, type in your Directory
ID and password to login. Press on "Continue" button in the "Login Successful"
page, Personal Information window will be
displayed. Make sure you provide a PRIMARY E-MAIL ADDRESS
there so that you can receive messages sent through BB system. You can also update other personal information
such as phone number, emergency contact information there.
The forwarding
Email address change will take place overnight to be reflected in the Blackboard
system.
Set/Change Forwarding Email Address in
Directory Account
- Students:
Messages posted through Blackboard courses will be send to your Directory email
account (DirectoryID@umd.edu), which is actually an alias email address.
They will then be forwarded to your real email address if you have one setup in your
Directory account. So you will need to setup a Forwarding or real email address
in your Directory account, and it
is important to keep your forwarding Email address
up-to-date so that you won't miss the messages sent from the Blackboard system.
To
set or change your email address, go to Testudo system at
http://testudo.umd.edu/, choose "Keep
your email address up to
date", then login with your Directory ID and password, or with your
SID and PIN, then make updates of
your Email and/or home address, phone number, etc. Make sure you received the confirmation message
"Your information has been successfully changed!"
The forwarding Email address change will take place within couple of days (sometimes over the weekend) to be reflected in the
Blackboard system.
For
working students (i.e. TA or GA), you need to change your email address from
both Testudo and
ARES (as for Faculty/Staff) (as
for Faculty/Staff). The email change may take a day
or a weekend to be reflected in the Blackboard system.
Email Problem
-- Cannot receive the messages sent from BB system. Especially some
UM Mail mail as well as Hotmail Users etc:
Some
users who are using UM e-Mail accounts (i.e. DirectoryID@mail.umd.edu)
or Hotmail as forwarding email address in your Directory account may have troubles receiving emails sent from BB course
site by Instructors or classmates. Please note that many email system has security
feature that sometimes it filters the messages sent from a user that
is not in the address-book to Junk or even Trash mail folder
instead of Inbox folder. So you may need to go to Junk/Trash folder to
see if you get the messages. To solve the problem, you may need to add the professor's email
address to your address book, or define the suitable definitions or rules in your
email
account regarding the incoming email messages.
To
test if you could receive an email send from BB system, login to BB system, get
into any course, send a message to yourself. Then go to your forwarding email account (the
one you set in Testudo and/or ARES) and check if you can receive it.
Browser
Related Questions and Issues:
For both Windows PC and Macintosh OS users, generally
we recommend Netscape 7.1, IE 5.5 and Firefox 1.0 or higher for best compatibility
with the Blackboard as well as our
eSmith portal system. You cannot use AOL built-in browser for Blackboard.
For Macintosh OS users, we do not recommend that you use Safari, especially when
using the text entry features, such as the announcements and discussion areas. If
the browser you used having a problem when trying to access a file, you may try
another browser such as Mozilla Firefox.
Blackboard requires that you have a newer browser, JavaScript and cookies turned
on. Besides, Blackboard application uses Java technology in many areas. If some
pages do not function well in your browser, you may need to install Java Runtime
Environment (JRE) for All Operating Systems from
http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp. In most cases Blackboard
will initiate this Java installation when needed.
You will need to install Firefox PDF Download Plug-in, the problem will be
solved. This plug-in can be found from
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/636/. It solves the problems everyone has
about handling PDF files with Firefox. Install it then try again on the PDF
document, you should be able to either open or save to disk.
Usually Firefox works well for MS Office files. If you do have a problem,
however, try install
ThinkFree Viewer
Add-on in Firefox. Then you can view ThinkFree or Microsoft Office word
processing, spreadsheet, and presentation files without having any other office
applications installed. It supports the following file formats: .doc, .rtf,
.txt, .xls, .csv, .ppt, and .pps.
So far (by July '07) Blackboard has not been certified to function with Windows
Vista or IE 7 in many areas. Especially Text editing using IE7 with Vista does
not function properly. Blackboard is working on fixing this issue at this time.
The suggested workarounds are to use Mozilla Firefox (www.getfirefox.com) or to
disable the Visual Text Box Editor within Blackboard. Go to Home tab in
Blackboard -> Personal Information ->
Set Visual Text Box Editor Options. Select Unavailable and Submit.
Alternatively, you can try to install the Java Virtual Machine from Sun
Microsystems for Blackboard to function.
In addition, there are issues with Word 2007 in regards to printing. Files saves
in Word 2007 format are not compatible with Blackboard, because of the new
extension type (.DOCX). Files uploaded to Blackboard must be in an older format
(ex. Word 2003). The option is available to save from Word 2007 into an older
Word format (.DOC).
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In Internet Explorer, when I click the link to a
Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Acrobat PDF file in the browser window, it
opens right there in the browser instead of in a separate window. This makes
printing difficult and is annoying! What should I do?
This is a "feature" of Windows, and there's nothing Blackboard can do from the
server side to fix it. You have two options:
You can download the file by right-clicking on the link and picking "Save Target
As..." Then you can open the file directly from your hard drive in the
appropriate application.
If you want to really fix the problem, you can follow the following procedure to
change the way Explorer handles the files:
1. On your computer, double-click on My Computer
2. In the Windows Explorer, go to Tools Menu->Folder Options
3. Click on File Types tab
4. Scroll through the list until you see the extensions you want (DOC for MS
Word, XLS for Excel, PPT for PowerPoint, PDF for Acrobat PDF)
5. Click once on the Extension and then on the Advanced button
6. On the bottom of the dialog box, be sure that Browse in Same Window is NOT
checked
7. Click OK and repeat with other extensions you might want to change
Where to ask other questions:
To ensure your request has a guaranteed reply, help us provide you with the
best quality support, and helps us better track trends in support requests,
please send all BB questions to
bbhelp@rhsmith.umd.edu, or stop by Smith IT helpdesk (Room# 3520, Van
Munching Hall).
If you have question regarding the contents of this Blackboard support website, contact Alice
Zhang in Smith IT.
If you have problem following the instructions here regarding Directory ID
and Password issue, please contact
Campus OIT helpdesk at 301-405-1500 (for Faculty/Staff) or
301-405-1400 (for Students), or elms@umd.edu,
they will be able to help you.
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