Tip: It is a good idea to add the Blackboard site to your Favorites or Bookmarks to save you time. Check your web browser's online help for more details.
Blackboard courses must be requested before the start of each new quarter, even if you already have an existing Blackboard site for that course . The reason for creating a new class each quarter is that enrollment is tied to the class by the course CRN. Because enrollment changes every quarter, a new class is required. If you teach the same class from quarter to quarter, you can still re-use the content from the previous site by indicating you would like that course copied.
To have a Blackboard course set up for you, simply fill out the online course creation form. If you want to use content from a previous course, fill out the form for re-using an existing course. If you want to create a new Blackboard course, fill out the form for creating a new course.
If you have multiple sections of the same course, it is sometimes helpful to create one Blackboard course and use it for all of those sections. The advantages of this are that it allows you to consolidate your course content into a single location, making it a comprehensive and consistent resource.
This is also a very effective way to integrate the students in both the on- and off-campus sections of your course into a single community-of-practice. They can communicate and collaborate with each other (using discussions and projects) regardless of their physical location.
Be aware that the GradeBook does not currently have the ability to organize students by course sections. However, by adding an additional column to your gradebook you can accomplish this and make grading multiple sections a little easier
This may happen because you either don't have the right software program to open the file, or the version of the software you have is too old.
If the file is Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, you can download a free viewer that will allow you to open, print, and download documents, but not edit.
You may need a plug-in for your browser, particularly for sound, movie, or Adobe Acrobat files. It is a good idea to install the most recent versions of Flash Player, Quicktime, Windows Media Player, Real One Player, and Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer.
Attachments may not open if the file name uses special characters. When sending attachments through Blackboard, it is important to avoid using characters such as #, $,%, &, and *. These characters when used in file names can create problems when trying to download them from Blackboard.
Blackboard uses frames for the layout of its screens. Within the Blackboard course area three frames are used - the general navigation buttons (including home, help and logout) appear at the top within one frame; the frame on the left includes the course navigation buttons (announcements, discussion board, communication, etc), with the right hand frame used for displaying the content of selections.
Only one frame is active at a time, and this is the frame that is printed. In order to print the main Blackboard frame where the content is located at, simply select something in that frame with your cursor. This will establish that frame as the active frame and allow you to print the contents.
When Blackboard courses are created, they are automatically set to be unavailable to students. Before students can access your Blackboard course, you need to set the course to become available. You can do this by going to the control panel and then selecting settings. Select course availability and then set make course available to yes. Click OK and your course is now available to students.
Blackboard sites will remain on the server for 8 quarters. After that we archive each course for that term and then delete the courses off the server to make room for the more current courses.
Note that if you wish to retain old copies of courses, you can always make your own archive of the course and save it to your hard drive or to CD. For instructions and other options, visit our archiving instructions . The completed archive is a .zip file of all the course data. Contact Blackboard Help if you ever wish to restore a course, or use bFree to view it on your desktop.
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2013 Western Washington University : page updated
02.26.2013
