What is ActiveX and how does it affect Blackboard?
ActiveX is technology developed by Microsoft to add interactive features and applications to web pages. Because of ActiveX security issues, you may encounter dialogs asking you to activate it when you attempt to use certain features in Blackboard, such as online tests and typing into text boxes (i.e., fill in the blank questions). These dialogs are often shown in a yellow bar at the top or bottom of the screen.
Depending on how your browser is configured, your experience may be different. Firefox does not explicitly employ ActiveX control. Note that Internet Explorer allows you to add Blackboard to your list of trusted sites. Setting the security level to low for trusted sites will enable more automatic ActiveX control. Be sure only trusted sites are added to this list. Be sure to “uncheck” the box to allow non-https sites to be in the list.
