Tips

Getting Help

For general technology questions, please see TechWeb. For help with SSW-specific services, please contact School of Social Work Information Technology (SSWIT).

Accessing Blackboard

Course content is available at http://blackboard.bu.edu/. For more information or to get help, please see the Blackboard 8 section of TechWeb.

Using BlackBoard: to find your class syllabus, etc.

Select ‘Course Documents’ from the list along the left side of the page for access to your syllabus.

  • There may be more than one file within the Course Documents if more than one professor is teaching the course. Select the appropriate file.
  • If there is no syllabus check ‘Announcement.’

The ‘Communication Center’ has some interesting features used in some classes.

Printing from the correct toolbar

Why do toolbars matter? They are where you find the ‘Print File’ function. (It’s either one written out in words or one that uses a picture of a printer). When you open a document in PDF format, you may have two toolbars to choose from. One toolbar is at the top of the screen (the web browser’s toolbar). The other is within a box created by a program like Adobe, for instance, that displays the document you want. This box has its own toolbar. Use this one to print.

Not all toolbars have print functions on them!

You discover you are looking at a document you want to print whose toolbar has no print function. Take a deep breath and close the document or hit ‘Back’ to return to the page in ‘Course Documents’ that shows the link for the document you want.

  • Click on the link, but instead of opening it; select ‘Save’ to save the document on the hard drive. If you are at a public computer you can save it there temporarily.
  • Open the document from its saved location and print it. (Consider buying a thumb drive to save onto. This is not an endorsement, but Radio Shack is across the street from Marsh Chapel.) Suggestion: tie your thumb drive to your keychain or backpack. Thumb drives are very easy to leave behind, with sanity-destroying consequences.

A few more words on Printing.

BU graduate students are entitled to 500 sheets of printing per year through MyPrint. Undergraduates are entitled to 100 pages of printing per year through MyPrint. It is possible to exceed this limit, especially if as a work-study student your professor asks you to print out documents.

Where to print stuff:

  • Several MyPrint locations are available around campus. BU Common @ Mugar is often the easiest place to handle a large volume of documents.
  • The basement of the SSW building is where you’ll find printers closest to your classrooms. (This is handy when finishing papers.)

Checking your print quota

Nothing’s worse than going to print out that final paper minutes before class and finding you can’t because you have exceeded your quota… yes, it has happened. So check how many pages you have left in your quota at http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/myprint/ (see the “My Balance” box at the top of the page.)

Adding pages to your quota

You can purchase additional printing for 8 cents per page using using convenience points.