This issue won’t be a problem if you’re a student, but faculty might come across it when trying to download a zipped file of submitted assignments from the Gradebook using “Item Download.” The error is triggered by spaces in the assignment title, such as “Project 6″ or “Research Paper.” The workaround seems to be removing the space(s) in the assignment name in the content area where the links are. You can use an underscore, hyphen, or just remove the space and then try the item collect routine again. A report from an English professor advises Mac users to remove the spaces and not use an underscore or hyphen – theallonewordapproach worked best for her Mac.
The issue is still being studied by Blackboard, so check back here for updates on this case. Below are the step-by-step instructions to perform the workaround:
- Open the Control Panel
- Open the content area where the assignment link is posted
- Click [Modify] next to the assignment link that needs to be renamed
- Change the title so there are no spaces
- Submit
For the more technically intrepid, one could alternatively, copy the link which downloads the assignment package to the clipboard, paste it into notepad, and manually replace all of the plus signs (which Blackboard is erroneously inserting in lieu of spaces) with %20 in the URL. Then copy and paste the modified URL into a browser address bar and the package download should complete, without having to change the item name in your course.
*Update 1-16-10: Blackboard reports that they will not be repairing this issue for our current version, however it may be addressed in a future upgrade.
There is a problem with special characters… No, not your Uncle Floyd, but those unique characters that you might use in a file name (like # or &, etc.). In Blackboard, some of these special characters are reserved by the system as operator commands and are considered illegal characters for users. If you attempt to submit a file (like an assignment) using one of these illegal characters in the file name, you’ll likely receive an error message and your assignment will not be submitted. The illegal characters you should NOT use include #, &, $, @, /, \, !, ?, %, ^, *… you get the idea (the list is long and includes most special characters).
