Blackboard: Save as Draft

In my last post, I touched on the “Save as Draft” option in Blackboard. Most often, this comes into play by accident… a student thinks he/she is clicking “Submit,” but actually clicks “Save as Draft.” As mentioned in my previous post, this will result in the draft being auto-submitted once the cutoff date is reached for the assignment. However, Save as Draft also serves a purpose, and should be utilized by the student from time to time. A situation occurred recently where a student was completing an online assessment, clicked save, and her response disappeared. While we cannot be certain what happened, it is very likely that the student was typing a long response, thinking for a while, and/or stepped away from the computer at some point. Any combination of these things lasting for a period of 40 minutes or more will result in the Blackboard session becoming inactive. I would recommend that you pass this information on to your students, and urge them to use the Save as Draft feature to ensure that their work does not dissapear.