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FAQ's (Discussion Board)

I keep getting an error message when I try to add a comment to the discussion board. It says something about inserting the FrontPage CD. Why is this happening?
This message means that the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser on your computer has a problem: the triedit.dll file has been disassociated. To fix this problem, the easiest thing to do is remove and reinstall Internet Explorer. You may also try looking for this problem at the Microsoft Web site to see if they have alternate solutions.

I'm trying to add a comment to our class discussion board, but it isn't working. However, if I go to a ULV computer lab or use a friend's computer I seem to be able to post without any problems. Any ideas on what's causing this?
This is pretty unusual behavior. However, since you are able to post from other computers then the problem would seem to be with your computer, not the Blackboard system.

You should check your computer for viruses and spyware. Either of these types of problems may cause you to not be able to post to your discussion board. You should first ensure you have good anti-virus software and that your virus definitions are updated. Then scan your whole disk to look for viruses.

You should also scan you disk for spybots. There are two good programs you can download and use for free to help find and remove spybots: Spybot Search and Destroy http://www.safer-networking.org/ and Ad-Aware http://www.lavasoft.de/.

I cannot enter my comments into the discussion board. I can read the discussions and click on the "Reply" button, but there doesn't seem to be any way to add my own comments. How can I join the discussion?
This is probably caused by the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor used in Blackboard; some computer configurations do not display the WYSIWYG screen. You should try to turn off that editor in order to revert back to the older text editor. To disable your WYSIWYG editor, click on the "My Institution" tab and then the "Personal Information" link in the tool box on the left side of the screen. On the Personal Information screen, click on "Set Text Box Editor Options" and then disable your WYSIWYG editor. You will then be able to use the older editor, which should work without any problem.

My instructor recommended that I first write my discussion board comments in Word and then copy and paste into the discussion board. By doing this, I can use all of Word's tools (like spell check) to improve my posts. However, if I type something that's long I can't paste it into the discussion board editor.
How can I fix this?
The editor used in the discussion board is not intended for really long notes. It will not handle any response that's more than about 4000 characters. If you want to just dash off a paragraph or two then the text editor is fine. However, for long responses (something that's a couple of pages or more) you will need to create a Word document and then upload that document into the discussion board. Uploading a long file also makes it easier for other folks in your class since they can then download your comments and read them at their leisure instead of plowing through several screens of text while online.

These FAQ's were compiled by George Self of Cochise College