Question

I just posted some files to my Blackboard class and some of my students are unable to download them, or the documents download as "junk." What should I do?

Answer

This could be due to several problems, such as naming conventions, software version, or operating system type. Here are a few things to try. 

• First, make sure you have no spaces or special characters in your file name. Only letters, numbers and the underscore "_" should appear before the period preceding the file extension (.xls, .ppt, .doc)
• You may have a more recent version of your software than your students do, so try saving the document "down" a version. For example, if you're using Microsoft Office XP, save your Powerpoint presentation as a Powerpoint 95 document (under the "save as" options.)
• Finally, the problem could be caused by operating system incompatibility--Macs not being able to read PC documents, or visa-versa. If you created the file on a Mac make sure you append the file extension (.doc for Word, .xls for Excel and .ppt for Powerpoint) to the file name. Windows computers expect to see and use this extension to open files. If these suggestions don't work, or if the only student not able to successfully download your document is on a Mac, contact Instructional Computing.