Adding Blackboard as a Trusted Site in Internet Explorer 7
Issue: If you are using Internet Explorer 7 as your Web browser, you must add the Blackboard Web address to your list of trusted sites in Internet Explorer 7. If Blackboard is not included in the list of trusted sites, the Visual Text Box Editor that is used with the Discussion Board and with quizzes will not function correctly. The formatting and content controls will appear, but the text box itself will appear broken. To solve this problem, you must add your college's Blackboard address, http://blackboard.yourcollege.edu, for example, as a Trusted Site. The following will help you to complete these settings. Note: The visual textbox editor will NOT work with Microsoft's new Vista operating system. Until Microsoft solves this problem, you must use the solution provided on this Web site: Windows Vista and the Discussion Board. If you are using Internet Explorer 7 with the Windows operating system (NOT the Vista operating system), follow the next series of steps.
  1. Open the Blackboard login page in Internet Explorer 7.0 and click Tools on the IE 7 menu (depending on your browser display, your "Tools" menu may appear near the top right or left of your screen:

    Select Tools on the IE 7 Menu.

    Select Tools on the IE 7 Menu.

  2. When the Tools menu appears, click "Internet Options" at the bottom of the Tools menu:

    3. Select Internet Options on the Tools Menu.

  3. When the Internet Options dialog box appears, click the Security tab:

  4. When the Security page appears, click the "Trusted sites" icon and then click the "Sites" button to open the Trusted Sites dialog box as indicated by the arrows in the image below:

  5. When the "Trusted sites" dialog box appears, the URL for the Blackboard server should appear in the Add this website to the zone field if you began this procedure from the Distance Learning page. If not, enter the URL that is used to access the Blackboard page: http://midway.sandhills.edu.

  6. Then click the Add button. When you click the Add button, you will receive a warning.

  7. Click "OK" and then change "http" to "https" in the dialog box. Then click the "Add" button again. Note: Make sure that the "Require server verification (https:) for all sites in this zone" is NOT checked. Then click "Close."

  8. When the Trusted Sites dialog box appears again, click OK at the bottom of the dialog box as indicated in the image below:

  9. Finally, to save all of your changes, close all of your open Web pages. Then open Internet Explorer again and login to the Blackboard website.

  10. Note: If you use the Discussion Board or take a quiz that requires you to type a short answer in a text box, when you move your mouse pointer to attempt to enter text in the text box editor, you may receive a warning prompt and be asked to run the ActiveX Controls:

    Run ActiveX Controls

  11. If you receive the warning at the top of your screen, right click the message warning box and select "Run ActiveX Control:

    Run ActiveX Control

  12. Then click the "Run" button:

    Run

  13. Then click the spacebar in the text area to begin writing your message:

    Press to spacebar to activate the control and begin entering text.

Modified Friday, December 07, 2007
Provided by CEI - The North Carolina Conference of English Instructors