Using Wikis in Blackboard – Bentley Student Guide
What is a Wiki?
A wiki is a website of one or more pages that allows anyone assigned to the wiki to add, edit, or remove content collectively. A wiki has an easy‐to‐use editor that lets you quickly add content and style your work.
Want to learn more about a wiki?
Please view this video before you proceed
Wiki in Blackboard
To use a wiki in Blackboard, your instructor needs to create and assign one for you. Your wiki in Blackboard starts off with one page: the homepage. You can add new pages at any time and link them together.
Note: This document consists of help pages from Learning Objects, Inc that have been modified for Bentley users. You can select the help or question mark button from any wiki screen in Blackboard to access the complete manual. 1
Using Wikis in Blackboard – Bentley Student Guide
Here are some of the ways in which you may be asked to use wikis for your classes: • Group project • Brainstorming • Collaborative writing • Sharing tips and advice • Knowledge base on a particular topic • Wiki Books
Finding a Wiki Site
To access a wiki from within your online course, go to any content area where the instructor has created the wiki. If you’re not sure how to locate the wiki, ask your instructor. Each course can have many team Wikis. If there are multiple team Wikis, your instructor will assign you to your team Wiki in Blackboard.
Accessing Team Wikis
1. 2. 3. 4. Go to your course home page. Click on the content area (Course Documents, Assignments, etc.) in the course menu. Browse the sub‐folders, if any. Click on the View on your wiki link.
Note: This document consists of help pages from Learning Objects, Inc that have been modified for Bentley users. You can select the help or question mark button from any wiki screen in Blackboard to access the complete manual. 2
Using Wikis in Blackboard – Bentley Student Guide
Creating a New Page
Create a new page by clicking new under the page heading in the sidebar on the right. Give the page a title and contents and then click Save.
You can now navigate to your new page either by clicking the page title in the site navigation section.
Editing a Page
To edit a page that you are on, click the edit link that appears in the sidebar on the right. This will launch a graphical page editor, which has a set of formatting controls as well as controls that allow users to add attachments and images, and to link files or pages.
Note: This document consists of help pages from Learning Objects, Inc that have been modified for Bentley users. You can select the help or question mark button from any wiki screen in Blackboard to access the complete manual. 3
Using Wikis in Blackboard – Bentley Student Guide
Save Controls
Save edits made to your page by clicking the Save button located at the bottom right of the screen. To stop editing without saving changes, click on the Cancel button.
Graphical Page Editor
You can type into the editor pane or cut and paste text and images from an HTML page or a Word document and then edit the inserted text. The Graphical Page Editor has support for many more functions such as Undo, Redo, Find, Replace, Insert Table, Full screen editing, and more. To learn your way around the editor, try experimenting! Begin editing a page and then hold your mouse pointer over any of the buttons to see a brief explanation of the function.
Attaching a File to a Page
To attach a file to a page, edit the page and then click the Upload File button ( ).
Note: This document consists of help pages from Learning Objects, Inc that have been modified for Bentley users. You can select the help or question mark button from any wiki screen in Blackboard to access the complete manual. 4
Using Wikis in Blackboard – Bentley Student Guide
Adding Images
To insert an image directly into a page, edit the page and click the Insert Image button ( ).
Site Navigation and Page List Navigating through a wiki is similar to navigating a website. Click on any link to go to that page. You can also access pages within the page list.
Site Navigation in the Sidebar
The site navigation section in the gray sidebar on the right shows all of the existing wiki pages.
Note: This document consists of help pages from Learning Objects, Inc that have been modified for Bentley users. You can select the help or question mark button from any wiki screen in Blackboard to access the complete manual. 5
Using Wikis in Blackboard – Bentley Student Guide
The site navigation section allows you to create sites quickly without building your own navigational structure into the site. If you would like a more advanced navigation structure, you can build that by creating your own links between pages.
Linking to other Pages or Sites
This feature allows you to insert a link to another wiki page (within the same wiki) or to an external website. Aside from linking to an existing wiki page, you can actually create a new wiki page simply by creating a link to a new page. Note: the new page will not appear in the site navigation list until you edit the new page. To create a link within your wiki: 1. Edit the page and highlight the text you wish to turn into a link. 2. Click the Insert Link button, which looks like a chain link ( ). 3. From the resulting dialog box, select the type of link you wish to add:
o o o
Link to a new page Link to an existing page Link to an external website
4. Enter or select the page name or URL for the link and click Insert. 5. You’ll see the link appear on original page; click Save to save the link.
Note: This document consists of help pages from Learning Objects, Inc that have been modified for Bentley users. You can select the help or question mark button from any wiki screen in Blackboard to access the complete manual. 6
Using Wikis in Blackboard – Bentley Student Guide
Commenting on a Page
The comments area displays at the bottom right of the page. Comments are hidden until you click on the Comments link. After opening and viewing the comments, you can add new ones via the Add Comment form.
Note: Depending on your wiki permissions, you may or may not see the ‘Add Comment’ form.
Deleting a Page
Pages in a wiki, other than the home page, can be deleted at any point.
Click ‘delete’ in the sidebar to delete a page. To delete a page: 1. Click on the delete link in the sidebar on the right. Note: Depending on your permissions in the wiki, you may or may not be able to select the delete link. 2. You will be taken to a confirmation page. 3. Choose YES to delete the page and keep the version history, PURGE to permanently delete the page and all of the associated history (this option is set by the instructor and may not be available to you), or NO to cancel. When you delete a page, the existing text is replaced with a message about who deleted it and when. You can access deleted pages through the page list in the toolbox.
Note: This document consists of help pages from Learning Objects, Inc that have been modified for Bentley users. You can select the help or question mark button from any wiki screen in Blackboard to access the complete manual. 7
Using Wikis in Blackboard – Bentley Student Guide
Page History When a page is saved, a record of saved changes is preserved. This stored history makes it possible for you to:
• • •
Track changes made to pages as the content is being built. Revert the page to a previous version. Recover a deleted page.
To access history for a particular page, click on the history link in the gray sidebar. From the next screen, click the View Diff button to see earlier versions and revert back to them.
When viewing a diff, you’ll see that changes are highlighted as follows:
• • •
New text is in green Changed text in yellow Deleted text is stricken‐through in red
Note: This document consists of help pages from Learning Objects, Inc that have been modified for Bentley users. You can select the help or question mark button from any wiki screen in Blackboard to access the complete manual. 8
Using Wikis in Blackboard – Bentley Student Guide
Recovering Pages
Since the wiki tracks each version of a page as you edit it, you can roll back to a previous version at any time by "reverting" to that version. This function is available from the page history and diff pages.
To recover a previous version of a page: 1. Click the history link in the side bar. 2. Locate the version you wish to recover and click on the View Diff button (for deleted pages, the deletion is the last revision, so click on the version below it to view the last recoverable version). 3. Review changes and click the Revert button.
The page you have selected will be updated and become the latest version. The page history of the wiki will be updated appropriately to indicate the changes made. Note that you can recover a page that has been deleted but not purged. If you return to the page history, you will notice that an additional revision has been made to track your change:
Note: This document consists of help pages from Learning Objects, Inc that have been modified for Bentley users. You can select the help or question mark button from any wiki screen in Blackboard to access the complete manual. 9