Notes on using DOCs in Blackboard Learn
- Like PDFs, Word DOCS can have table of contents, bookmarks etc. However these require the author to correctly format and set-up the Word documents beforehand and correctly use styles and other Word features. See the section on Formatting in this presentation.
- Word DOCs will not load inside Blackboard’s browser window, the user will instead be prompted to Save or Open the document and be required to read the document inside Microsoft Word. This will move them away from the browser based content and into another application. This may be confusing for Blackboard Learn users. It also requires them to have the Word app installed on their phone or tablet.
- Word is also great for printing documents and making editable documents available to users. Paper is superior to computer screens in many ways, and users often prefer to print documents that are too long to easily read online.
- For online reading, bulky Word Documents should be avoided.
- Large, un-optimised images can quickly add to a Word document’s file size.
- For small amounts of text consider adding it directly on the Blackboard page.