Tips for a Successful Startup

Blackboard is a state-of-the-art web-based "learning management system", supported for use by all instructors at Saint Mary's College. It offers instructors a a number of powerful web-based tools for engaging students - whatever be their learning style.

1. Missing a course?

Blackboard takes its instructor and student information from the Banner system. However, while course sites are automatically created, instuctors must make their course site available to student. If you cannot see a course in your Courses list, it is likely that your Department has not listed you as teaching that course in Banner /Prism.  To remedy this, ask your school office to make sure that you are listed in Banner as an instructor for the courses that you are teaching.  Blackboard is updated with the latest information from Banner every 24 hours, so once a change is made in Banner it will be reflected in Blackboard the following day.

2. Managing Multiple Course Sections

Instructors teaching multiple sections of a course can - if they so choose - request a course site which merges students and content in one course site rather than maintaining separate course sites for each section. Instructors can fill out the Merge Students web-form to identify the sections to be merged and a new customized course site will be created normally within 1 working day. Once the new "merged" course site is created, instructors can begin to add content, The old individual sections will be removed.

3. “Copy” material from a previous course?

Each Blackboard course begins life as an empty shell.  You can reuse course materials from a previous course as follows:

COPYING CONTENT FROM AN EARLIER COURSE

1. Log into the Blackboard System and select the older course containing reusable content
2. Click on the Control Panel > Course Copy > Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course.
3. Click on the “Browse” button and select the "target" course, into which you want to copy content. Look for the Blackboard Course ID containing the Banner semester code ( Fall, 2010 courses, end in "201110" ). Click the "Select " button to the right of the Course.
4. Select all content areas you want to copy by selecting the respective check boxes (It is probably safest to select to copy everything. This will avoid broken links when items with links to the Grade Center like assignments and quizes are copied, without also copying "Grade Center Columns and Settings". Broken links are difficult to fix. When in doubt select everything to be copied!)
5. Click Submit. Wait for the message “This action has been successfully queued. An email will be sent when the process is complete”. Click the OK button. (The system will import the content within a few minutes. When the process is complete, the Instructor who initiated the operation receives an email.)
6. Instructors should check and make necessary changes to the course content in the new course.

The above procedure is best when copying large portions of a course. When you prefer to copy individual content items from courses you have taught, the following procedure should be used:

1. Visit the content area in the previous course that contains content you want to copy.
2. Click the EDIT button
3. Click the COPY button to the right of the item
4. When the Copy or Move window appears, select the name of the Destination Course.(If you have more than one course of the same name, it will help if you modify the name of each instance of the same course, adding the semester it was taught, e.g...."Instructional Design, Fall, 2009" . Instructors can modify the generic Course Name in the course Control Panel, using Setting > Course Name.)
5. Once the Destination Course has been chosen, you can click the Browse button to select the proper Destination Folder in that course.
6. If you are copying content, then leave check No, in response to "Remove item after copy".
7. Click Submit, and then OK to complete the item copy.

4. Make your Blackboard course available to students?

When courses are created on Blackboard they are set to be unavailable to students.  This is so that you may prepare the course and then make it available when it is ready.  You can easily tell if a course is unavailable to students, because the word “unavailable” appears beside it in your My Courses list.  Remember to make your course available to students before you tell them to use it. 

 

5. How to limit the Courses you display in "My Courses"?

After using Blackboard for more than a year you may find that your My Courses list becomes cluttered.  You can tidy it up and make it show only your current courses by following this tutorial from the University of Southampton..

6. Adding a colleague or a student to your course?

The majority of Blackboard courses are populated automatically with students but instructors may add a colleague or a student to a course manually.  If the person to be added is not already in the Blackboard system, contact the System Administrator about adding them to Blackboard. Then instructors can enroll them (initially as a student), and can then change their status from "student" to "teaching assistant" or one of the other course roles (See the manual entry describing course roles for "Course builder", "Grader", "Teacher's assistant"). The Instructions enrolling someone in your course are given in this tutorial by the University of Southampton.

7. New features?

A number of new features have been added to Blackboard, including blogs, wikis, search, and podcasts.  A number of changes have been made to Blackboard over the summer with the introduction of Blackboard 8. Find out more online:

• New Features in Blackboard - Blogs, Wikis, and More!
• New Features and changes in Blackboard 8.

8. What to do if you have a Blackboard question?

9. Blackboard Maintenance Schedule

The Blackboard system is backed up each Sunday morning, 5:00 am - 9:00 am, and the system is unavailable during this time. We intend to keep courses on the system for up to 3 years. The courses we plan to delete will be listed for review.If one of your courses is on the list and you need it restored, send us an email. We have backups of all courses that are removed.

10. What to do about Blackboard problems

If you have problems with Blackboard, you should try a different browser. Run a simple browser check by clicking here to provide valuable information that will be essential in trouble shooting your problems.