If you are directed to send your instructor a paper, essay, report, or other writing assignments, you should submit it through the Digital Drop Box in the Student Tools section of the course. (Note: Teachers will use the Digital Drop Box through the Control Panel.) Please follow these steps:

1. First check the document that you have saved on your hard drive or floppy disk to make sure you have saved it in a format that is compatible with your instructor's word processing program. If you are unsure about the format to use, please scroll down this page and read "Saving Your Document" or click here.

2. If you are a student, click on the "Student Tools" (or "Tools") button located at the left of your screen in your Blackboard course:

   

3. In the "Student Tools" (Blackboard 5) or "Tools" (Blackboard 6) section, click on the "Digital Drop Box" link, as shown below. For further instructions, skip to #6 below:

   

4. If you are a teacher, click on the "Control Panel" button located at the left of your screen in your Blackboard course:

   

5. In the "Control Panel" section, click "Digital Drop Box" link in the "Course Tools" area, as shown below:

   

6. To send a file to your instructor's drop box, (or teachers to the student's drop box), click on the "Send File" button ("Add File to Drop Box" in some earlier versions of Blackboard.) Caution: If you click on the "Add File" button, you will store the file in your drop box but not send it to the instructor. If you do want to add a file to the drop box and then later send that file to your instructor (or if you are an instructor and want to place a file in the drop box and then later send send that file to a student), click here.

   For Students:
   

   For Teachers:
   

7. When the File Information dialog box appears, you can click on the "Select File" box and then click on the name of the file if you have already stored it in your Drop Box. Otherwise, click in the "Title" box and type the name of your file. Unless your instructor directs you otherwise, type the name of the report followed by your last name and first name.
   

8. Click on the Browse button to find your report on your computer. You will have to remember the file name that you used when you saved your report and whether you saved it on a floppy disk (usually located in Drive A of your computer) or whether you saved it in the My Documents folder (usually on Drive C of your computer). You may need to click on the small button beside "Files of Type" and change to "All Files" to locate your document.
   

9. Then click on the name of the document and then the Open button. You will then see your file name appear in the "File" box. Also type the name of your file in the "Title" box. Be sure to use a title that indicates the name of your document and your name. You may also want to type a comment for your instructor, as shown below. Then click on the "Submit" button to send your file to your instructor's drop box.
   

10. After you have sent your file, your screen will display a record that Blackboard has sent your file:
    

11. When you click on the OK button, you will be returned to your drop box with a record of the name of the file that you sent and when you sent it, as shown below:
    

If you are using a program other than Microsoft Word® but you will later be editing your document on another computer that uses a different word processing program, or if you will be sending your file to someone who does not have the same program that you are using, then you should save your document as a file type other than "Word," as explained below.

1. First, click on File on the menu bar and then click on Save As on the File Menu:

   

2. After you click on "Save As," the Save As dialog box will appear, as shown below. If you are saving your work on your own computer, go to the next step. If you want to save your work on a floppy disk, click on the button to the right of the "Save in" box and change to the floppy drive, as shown below:

   

3. Look at the bottom of the Save As dialog box and you will see two rectangles, the first labeled "File name" and the second "Save as type." Click in the File name box, press your backspace key to delete the words in the box, and type the file name you wish to use. Then click on the button to the right of the Save as type box and choose the file type that you will use on your home computer. If you want to preserve your formatting (boldfacing, italics, bulleted lists, double spacing, etc.), click on the "Rich Text Format" option, as shown below.

   

4. Once the document file name has been changed to a "rich text format" document, as shown below, click on the Save button on the right side of the dialog box.

   

5. If you are single spacing a document and not using boldfacing, bullets, etc., you can save your document as "Text Only." To do so, click on the "Text document" option, shown below:

   

6. Once the document file name has been changed to a text only document, as shown below, click on the Save button on the right side of the dialog box.

   

7. Either of the formats, Rich Text Format or Text Only, can be read by any word processing program.