Student Availability
Three times a day the enrollment status of students in Blackboard courses associated with one or more CRNs is updated. Each student that remains registered in that course is marked "available" and each student that has dropped the course via Web4U is marked "unavailable".
Dropped students are removed permanently from a course just three times a term: the first day of classes, the Monday after the add/drop period is over, and just before finals period.
When students are "unavailable" they still show up in the grade book, but they are not added to emails sent from the course and they cannot enter the blackboard course.
Changing Availability of User
You cannot permanently change the availability of a user who has enrolled via banner (Web4U). This is done by the automated system.
If your course is NOT associated with a CRN you must do all enrollment updates manually or contact Blackboard Help for help with one-time batch enrollments.
If you wish to change the availability of a student or instructor that you have added manually, follow these instructions:
- Go to Users and Groups in the Control Panel of the course and select Users
- Select Username and Not Blank in the Search: dropdowns and in the screen shot below, then press Go to see all the enrollments.
- If you cannot see the user's name on the page, type in last name or username of the user you wish to modify in the Search box, type the appropriate Search term, and click the Go button.
- Select the arrowed context menu button next to the user you wish to modify.
- When the menu pops up, select Change User's Role in Course or Change User's Availability in Course.
- If you are changing the user's role, select the appropriate role in this course. If you are only changing the user's availability, skip this step:
- Student
- Can view all content and own grades made available by the instructor. All users enrolled by automaetd enrollment have the Student role, which cannot be changed. (You may be able to make temporary changes, but they will be overridden within 24 hours. Contact Blackboard Help to request a guest account for the user in question to work around this restriction)
- Instructor
- Can enroll and change roles of other users in the course, can view and edit grades, and can create, edit, and delete all content in the course. This is the highest level of trust a user can have in a BB course, short of a System Administrator, so use this role judiciously.
- Teaching Assistant
- Similar to instructor, but without top-level privileges to change user roles. Has full view/edit access to grades and content.
- Course Builder
- Can create, edit, and delete all content in the course, but cannot view or edit grades. Might be appropriate for guest presenters to provide Power Points, readings, etc. on Blackboard without having access to confidential information.
Please note there is a Blackboard bug that does not allow Course Builders to access courses unavailable to students.
- Grader
- Can view and edit grades; deploy tests but not edit them; view available course content; and view student assignments.
- Guest (not used)
- The guest role is designed for guests of a school to preview courses, but Admissions has their own account for prospective students. We never use this role in our system.
- If you are changing the user's availability, select whether the user is available. If you are not changing the user's availability, skip this step.
- Select the Submit button at the bottom right of the page.
Note that you will not be able to view or modify Blackboard System Administrators that are in your course.
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