Assignment submission hints

File Names and Types

Blackboard has trouble with some special characters, so avoid using the characters # / ? < > \ : * | & ^ and " in the filename. Avoid spaces in your filenames. Use underscores instead. e.g: assignment_name_3.doc

If you use a Mac and the file does not have a three-letter extension, tick the show extension box when saving your file, or add one to the name. For example, add ".doc" on the end of Word documents, ".pdf" on the end of PDF documents, and ".xls" on the end of Excel files

Files should not be more than 60Mb in total. If you are submitting multiple files please upload a zip folder with the files inside.

If you are using a word processor other than Microsoft Word, save your file as RTF. Every word processor has this option - just choose Save As... and set the file type to be RTF. If you are cutting and pasting into the submission box, use a plain text editor such as NotePad (PC) or TextEdit (Mac), as Microsoft Word code may interfere with your submission.

Trouble Uploading?

If you have trouble uploading your document, here are a couple of things to try:

• Log out, log in and try again. Sometimes the server gets overloaded or your Java can crash (this is a program that computers use to upload docs to web)
• Try a different browser (like Firefox)
• If you already completed the assignment and clicked 'Submit' previously, you will be able to resubmit it a second time. Your lecturer will download the latest file you upload.

Make sure your Java is up-to-date.

Microsoft word cut & paste

It's always a good idea to draft your discussion messages and assignment submissions into an rtf file before cutting and pasting into the submission field. This means that a) you won't lose any of your work if the browser crashes in the middle of your message or submission and b) you will always have a backup copy of your work.

Need more help?

Contact Sydney eLearning via the online form at: http://sydney.edu.au/elearning/student/trouble/email_us.php