MySlice, Blackboard, etc

MySlice

MySlice is the human resources and financial management software used by SU (it is a customized instance of PeopleSoft by Oracle.) All SU employees use it to access and update their tax and benefit information. Students use it to register for classes. Faculty members and teaching assistants use it to access the class roster and to post final grades. MySlice is the system of record: a students is registered for a class if and only if they appear on MySlice roster.

When viewing class roster, you can click Include photos in list and then View All to have the ID photo of each student displayed next to their name.

Near the end of each semester the grade roster is made available in MySlice. In addition to using it for posting grades, you will also see which students withdrew from the course: they will be marked WD on the grade roster.

Blackboard

Blackboard is the course management system used at SU. Every section of every class, lecture or recitation, has a presence on Blackboard. The Blackboard roster is periodically synced with MySlice, which means it is updated when students add or drop, but with a delay of about 1 day. The students who withdraw from a course remain in Blackboard.

Blackboard can be used for many instructional purposes.

  • Send email to the class
  • Post grades. The grades can be entered directly or uploaded.
  • Post course materials, announcements, and collect assignments in electronic form.

Your students do not have access to your Blackboard course until you make it available to them. However, you can send email via Blackboard without making the course available.

For more information on Blackboard, see SU ITS Answers.

Blackboard Ultra Course View

Beginning Fall 2024, all Blackboard courses will be delivered in Ultra Course View, but you can start using it now. Please visit Answers for more information about Ultra Course View. 

The following observations about Ultra are intended to supplement the feature comparison of Ultra Course View (UCV) and Original Course View (OCV).

UCV gradebook cannot have text entries; only numbers are allowed. Workarounds: if you enter recitation numbers, use numeric format (e.g., 7 instead of M007); if you post exam seat locations, use two columns: Row number and Seat number.

Instead of email, UCV uses Messages which stay within Blackboard. You can send a copy of your message by email, but this copy will always have the same subject: “Instructor_Name sent you a new message in MAT.XYZ.Course_Name”. This copy is formatted like an invitation to go to Blackboard and view the actual Message. Any files you sent will a Message be converted to links. Students can only reply to Messages using Blackboard interface; they cannot reply to the emailed copy. The instructor does not receive an emailed copy of a Message.

UCV makes it easy to copy materials between courses with the same instructor. However, it has no export function for tests, so they cannot be shared with other instructors by exporting and importing. A currently available workaround is copying tests through an Ultra organization; email Leonid Kovalev if you are interested in doing this.

One can download and upload grades in UCV about the same way as in OCV: the format of Excel files with grades remains the same. However, downloading requires at least one grade column to exist.

Orange SUccess

Orange SUccess is an online advising tool designed to facilitate communication with (and advising/support for) your undergraduate students. Instructors can access it by first logging in to either MySlice or Blackboard and then following a link to Orange SUccess. Going through Blackboard is preferable, as it avoids having to log in again. From Blackboard, click Tools on the left menu (without entering any course), and choose Orange Success from the list of tools.

The classroster in Orange SUccess has more information about students than MySlice. It is also slightly different in that the students who withdrew from the course (with a WD) are removed from Orange SUccess while remaining in MySlice and Blackboard. If you prefer a roster without WDs (e.g. to make a seating chart for the final exam), you can get either from the page “Students / Zoom in” or from “Students / Attendance”. The latter is preferable for large sections because it shows the entire class at once. 

Orange SUccess features include attendance tracking, “flags” for communication with students and their advisors, and an appointment manager which can sync with your Outlook Calendar. (However, there are better appointment managers, such as Microsoft Booking, youcanbook.me, etc)

For more information on Orange SUccess see orangesuccess.syr.edu.

Profile pages

Standardized profile pages for faculty, staff, and graduate students are created by the CAS Communications team. Updates to those pages should be submitted using their contact form.

Accessibility

Printing

The printer in the copy room next to mailboxes is named:

  • (Windows) AS-MAT-CARN-216-COPIER on as-prq
  • (Mac) AS-PRQ-AS-MAT-CARN-216-COPIER

The printer outside of Chair’s office is named:

  • (Windows) AS-MAT-CARN-215-COPIER on as-prq
  • (Mac) AS-PRQ-AS-MAT-CARN-215-COPIER