Ontario has introduced the NEW 30% off Ontario Tuition program (referred to as the Ontario Tuition Grant or OTG) to make education more accessible and affordable for full-time students at Ontario’s colleges and universities. Visit www.stclaircollege.ca/registrar/finanaid/ontario_tuition_grant.html for details and links to eligibility requirements and FAQs. The deadline to apply for the current term is MARCH 31, 2012.

Whether you are new to Blackboard, or have used it previously, you should make a practice of periodically ensuring that your Blackboard e-mail address is correct and up-to-date. A good time to do this is normally at the start of each semester. You will not be able to send or receive messages from within the Communications portion of your Blackboard course if your Blackboard e-mail address is not valid. The e-mail address that you should use is the one that was issued to you by St.Clair College. In order to do this, you would do the following:

• Click on the "Personal Information" link that is available from your My Institution tab. My Institution is the tab where you are located immediately upon logging into Blackboard.
• After clicking "Personal Information", please click the "Edit Personal Information" link. You would then edit the e-mail address located within the Email field if necessary and then click Submit.

Just a quick reminder to instructors that you control the availability of course sites to students.

New course sites are marked as being unavailable to your students by default. When your course is ready for your students to access, click on Customization > Properties from your Control Panel, scroll down to Set Availability, choose Yes for the Make Course Available option, then click Submit. You would also go to the same location at the end of the term when they are no longer required by your students to make them unavailable.

If you have not yet requested a Blackboard course to be set up for the current semester, please note that you cannot re-use a course from a previous semester. Please click here for additional information on requesting your Blackboard courses.

There should be few, if any instances where you would need to enroll your own students manually provided you have supplied the correct class section information when the Blackboard course was requested This is because enrollments are done automatically on a dailly basis, and they are based on official student registrations for the class sections you provide.

Please keep track of the class sections that you had initially requested just in case they get changed.

In the event that you discover you have provided an incomplete list of class sections, or if a section has been added to your course load, please contact IT Systems to have that section added and the applicable enrollments will be processed within one business day. Do not rely on manually enrolling them alone, because it is possible that you may miss some, especially if they have been registered AFTER you have manually enrolled that group of students.

In the event that you do need to enroll a student manually for whatever reason, please do not enroll anyone that does not have a College issued username. College issued usernames are in the format W1234567 (where 1234567 is their student number). If a College issued user account does not yet exist for a student, please contact IT Systems.

Before beginning an Assessment:

• You should disable your pop-up blocker or add blackboard.stclaircollege.ca to the list of sites allowed to display popups.

During an Assessment:

• Do not double click on the Save or Submit buttons during an assessment. Please be aware that sometimes it takes a while (up to several minutes) to Submit an assessment. Once you click Submit, DO NOT click Submit again. If you do so, you may lose all of the answers for your test. Click once on Submit and wait for the submission to occur. Do not navigate away from the page during this time.
• Never click the Back button in the browser window during an assessment. This will lead to Blackboard submitting your assessment; whether or not you have completed it.
• It is a good idea to close all other open applications and browser windows (including instant messenger windows, other web sites, email, etc.) before beginning an assessment on Blackboard in order to minimize the potential for losing your connection to Blackboard.

Submitting the Assessment:

• Click Submit one time and wait. Give Blackboard up to 5 minutes to Submit the assessment. You will receive a confirmation screen once the assessment has submitted. Do not click Refresh, Back, or Submit during this time or you will lose your assessment attempt and will see a padlock in the Gradebook.
• If you receive an error message during the submission of your assessment, write it down exactly along with the time and date, the web browser used, exactly what you were doing when you received the error and any other applicable details. Although the test results cannot be retrieved, you may need this information upon contacting your Instructor and/or Client Support in order to resolve any potential problems with your future assessment attempts.
• In the event that an assessment attempt needs to be cleared by your Instructor due to a problem such as listed above, you should clear your browser cache, and restart your computer prior to taking the assessment again. Failure to do so could result in an error message immediately upon starting your next attempt

This announcement is intended for those people whose computer is on the Windows Vista Operating System AND who ALSO use the Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser to access Blackboard. Students and staff who access Blackboard FROM CAMPUS PREMISES ONLY will not be affected and need not follow the procedures listed below since the college does not use the Vista platform.

Because of security related changes that Microsoft has incorporated into Windows Vista, the Visual Text Box Editor within Blackboard will no longer function properly for people using that operating system along with Microsoft Internet Explorer. There are certain areas of Blackboard that use the Text Box Editor such as the Discussion Board, and essay questions within Blackboard tests and surveys.

Students and staff using that operating system and web browser should do the following immediately upon logging into Blackboard:

• Click the Personal Information link at the left and bottom of your Tools Menu.
• Click the Visual Set Text Box Editor Options link.
• Choose the Unavailable option.
• Click the Submit button or hit the Enter key.

After following the procedures as listed above, you will no longer have the formatting toolbar that was available for Blackboard users who also use Internet Explorer along with an older Windows operating system, but text box areas within Blackboard will once again function. Thank you...

We are pleased to announce St. Clair College is officially on Facebook. Visit www.facebook.com/stclaircollege to become a "fan" (if you have a Facebook account) and to access news items, pictures from college events, videos and more!

The pandemic influenza virus (pH1N1) is affecting people around the world. Our first reported outbreak in Windsor occurred in the Spring of this year and we are expecting the second wave of this illness to arrive here in Windsor shortly. Many college/university students in the States have already reported an early increase in flu-like illnesses. We want you to be protected so we have taken many steps for your health and safety. However, we can't do it without YOU - we need your help to carry out the plan and keep the college a safe place to be! Click on any of the following links to learn more about symptoms of flu-like illness, what you can do to protect yourself and those around you, what you are required to do if you become ill.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please contact the Health Centre Nurse at:

South Campus - extension 4458 or 519-972-2380

Thames Campus - extension 3229

To know more about the St. Clair College Corporate Pandemic Plan, click on the link below or you can find the full plan with departmental guidelines and home plans on the College intranet site or on the Health Centre Website under Corporate Pandemic Plan.