Had an interesting troubleshooting session involving a file submitted for an assignment. The file was empty. The instructor gave a grade of 0 for the attempt. And a student was mystified how a week’s worth of work went missing when the file was on her computer and had lots of content.

Some preliminary sleuthing by the instructor uncovered a post by another university warning that they had seen problems when students using Microsoft Edge and Microsoft Word tried to attach documents to Blackboard assignments and the attached files were empty. Some additional research revealed that the students had the file open in Word while attaching it to Blackboard. Having the file open in Word seems to be the culprit. Although students had saved the file just before attaching, the file that was attached was empty. This issue was reported to Blackboard about 2 years ago and seems to have been addressed by Microsoft. In testing, we were not able to replicate the problem.

Why report this problem given that a fix seems to be in place? It’s the somewhat troubling practice of having a file open while trying to submit it. If you forget to save the file before exiting, you can accidentally submit the wrong version of your assignment. Given that some instructors only allow one submission, you may have to ask the instructor for permission to resubmit. Given that many students work up until deadline this may mean that you are asking an instructor to reset your assignment minutes before the deadline, your request might not be seen until too late.

Some words to the wise: Save all changes. Exit the program used to create the file (any program not just Microsoft Office programs). Attach your file and submit your assignment. You’ll rest easier knowing that the file you think you submitted is the file your instructor will be grading.