• Make it clear the Blackboard's group tools are private and only available to team members and the instructor or teaching assistant.
• Suggest back-up plans for technology problems. Students may encounter problems with Blackboard, applications, computers, and Internet connections. Encourage team members to exchange phone numbers and think of alternative computers they can use. Advise teammates to back up their work, storing each other's work in case of hardware or software failures.
• Indicate which Discussion Board (i.e., group or public) you expect group members to use for posting messages.
• If you want groups to discuss an assignment publicly, you can set up Forums in the class Discussion Board for each team so that they are the only ones who can contribute but everyone in the class can view these discussions.
• Encourage students to set up a file naming conventions for sharing files, so that they don't accidentally overwrite each other's work when exchanging files. File names can include dates, student initials, and version numbers to help prevent confusion. Version numbers are especially useful (e.g., Project-01.doc, Project-02.doc, Project-03.doc, etc.). They allow teams to retain earlier versions of work, in case group members change their minds and decide to reintroduce something from an earlier file (e.g., Project-01.doc).
• Just like in the class Discussion Board, the Group Discussion Board requires the instructor (or teaching-assistant) to add Forums for the group members.

Tips to ensure higher-quality team projects using Blackboards group tools:

• Require teammates to use the Group Discussion Board so that a record exists documenting the evolution of team's thinking about an assignment.
• Encourage team members to use the Group File Exchange as a way to retain and track drafts of the group's work.
• Caution students that while the asynchronous group communication tools enable a variety of ways to interact, these benefits come at a price. Namely, increased workloads and additional time required to reach group consensus.
• Warn students about the limitations of synchronous interaction with the Group Virtual Classroom. Identifying times convenient to all the group members will be challenging. In addition, interactions in the Group Virtual Classroom tend to be less structured, faster paced, and sometimes overwhelming. Sharing a workspace (whiteboard) for imported Web pages and drawings can take some practice, group members must learn to take turns. This form of communications is also vulnerable to technical problems. Finally, advise students about platform requirements and compatibility information for running the Group Virtual Classroom. (See System Requirements for Blackboard.)
• The biggest disadvantage of using the Group E-mail tool it can only send not receive group email. Students will still need a local email client to receive messages because Blackboard doesn't provide this ability. In addition, the Group E-mail tool lacks a built-in spell checker or grammar checker. So, students should compose messages using a word processor like Word, then copy and paste it into the Group E-mail form.

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