• How do I get my courses into Blackboard?
  
• Why can't students see my class?
  
• Why can't my students see their grades?
  
• How do I archive a course for future use?
  
• Who is responsible for adding students to my courses?
  
• A student has tried to take an online quiz, but was unable to finish because his computer crashed (or some other reason). How do I clear that attempt so he can take it again?
  
• I am teaching a class but do not know how to use Blackboard. What do I do?
  
• How do I remove students from my course?
  
• I used Blackboard for a course I taught last year. Do I need to create a new account to use Blackboard again?
  
• I lost students' grades for an exam after revising a question on the test. How can I re-enter these grades into my grade book?
  
• How do I change a test answer that is keyed wrong?
  
• How do I add announcements?
  
• How do I email my students?
  
• How do I create and manage groups in Blackboard?
  
• How can I save time when inputting grades in the Blackboard Gradebook?
  
• What is the Virtual Classroom?
  
• My students can only view a PowerPoint in slide mode, which prevents them from printing. What's wrong?
  

To request a Blackboard course please submit this online request form.

You have to make your course available to students. The Course Availability page is used to control access to your course. All courses are set to unavailable by default.
To make your course available to students:
From your Course Website, click on Control Panel.
Choose Course Settings, then Course Availability.
Choose Yes.
Click Submit.

You have to enable this feature:
In your course's Control Panel, click on Course Settings.
Choose Area Availability. This screen is divided into three sections: (1) Area Availability, (2) Enable/Disable Communications Areas, and (3) Enable/Disable Tools. Unless "Tools" is enabled under section 1 and "Check Grade" is enabled under section 3, your students will not be able to check their grades.

To archive a course:
In your course's Control Panel, click on Course Utilities.
Choose Archive Course.
Choose the areas you would like us to upload into your new course. You will most likely will choose Content (This includes: Course Information, Course Documents, Assignments, Books, Staff Information and External Links) and Course Settings (This includes: Course Properties, Course Availability, and Area Availability). You can also archive Assessments and Pools and Discussion Board. Do not archive Users and Groups - new students will be uploaded into your course the Friday before the term begins.
Click Submit.
You will be brought to a Receipt page. Download the file. Click OK.
*Note: Archiving a course does not remove it from the system.

Faculty may add students on an individual bases or they can request the Blackboard administrator Ms. Dian Leger to batch enroll students into their course.

To clear a student's exam attempt, please follow the instructions below:
Within your course, click the Control Panel button.
Under Assessment, click Online Gradebook.
Click on Report By User.
Search for users using their last name or user name, type value of the chosen search method, then click on the Search button. The "A-Z, 0-9" tab can be used to select/search groups of users by the first letter in their last name. The Advanced tab can be used to search for specific users enrolled within a specific time range.
When the user profile appears, click on Grades.
Click on the red (!) link next to the exam in question.
When the exam appears, click on the Clear Attempt button. The student will now be able to re-take the exam.

ITS will be offering classes to help you learn Blackboard through out the semester, see this link for schedules. Otherwise, if you have specific questions, please contact Ms Dian Leger.

Go to Control Panel > User Management > Remove Users
Either Search for the particular student or List All
Check the box to the left of the name of the student(s) you wish to remove
Type the word "Yes" in the box at the bottom right of the page exactly as it appears
Click Submit
Click OK in the warning box
The student(s) will no longer appear in your class roster, or have access to the course information.
NOTE: removing a student from a course will permanently delete all of their information in the Online Gradebook; these items can not be recovered by Blackboard Support.

No, you can recycle the course for use for the next semester.

Unfortunately, there is not a simple answer to resolve this problem. However, if you have the grades written down, you can use this workaround...
Have each student start the quiz again and submit it without answering the questions. You can then go into the grade book and change the point value of each question (the long way) or enter the total points for the test under the first question.

Go to the Control Panel > Assessment Manager and click the Modify button to the right of the assessment. When it loads the test, locate the questions that you wish to change and click the Modify button to the right of the question.

Blackboard announcements are a good way to keep students apprised of new information or changes to schedule. New announcements appear both in the My Announcements box (visible upon initial login) and on the course's homepage for seven days (by default). You can specify that an announcement become available and/or disappear at a specific date and time, or remain visible permanently.
Follow these steps to create an announcement:
Login to Blackboard and enter course for which you wish to make an announcement
Click Control Panel > Announcements (under Content Areas heading)
Click Add Announcement
Provide subject and body of announcement
Select options for controlling duration of announcement display:
display seven days (default),
display permanently,
display for date range specified
Click Submit.

Send e-mail to the whole class?
From the Control Panel under “Course Tools,” click on “Send E-mail.” Next, click the “All Users” link. The names of all course participants, including yourself, should automatically appear in the “To” line of the email form. Type your message, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click the “Submit” button in the bottom right corner of the page.

Send e-mail to a single user or student?
From the Control Panel under “Course Tools,” click on “Send E-mail.” Next, click the “Single/Select Users” link. A list of all course participants will appear in the “To” line of the e-mail form, with a check box to the left of each participant name. Click in the check box to the left of only the student you wish to e-mail. Type your message, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click the “Submit” button in the bottom right corner of the page.

Send e-mail to a sub-group within the class?
There are two ways to send e-mail to a sub-group within a class. The first is to follow the instructions above for sending e-mail to a single student, but to check the boxes to the left of every student in the sub-group. The second is to first define several sub-groups using Blackboard’s “Manage Groups” function in the Control Panel under “User Management,” then go to “Send E-mail” under “Course Tools” and click “Single/Select Groups.” This should take you to an e-mail form with the name of each group you have defined in the “To” line. Check the box to the left of the group name you wish to e-mail. Type your message, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click the “Submit” button in the bottom right corner of the page.

Attach files to e-mail?
After you have selected the users you wish to email and typed your message, scroll down to the “Add Attachments” portion of the e-mail form. Click the “Add” button, which will take you to another form, which allows you to attach a file. Next click the “Browse . . .” button to locate the file you wish to attach on your hard drive or on the network. Once you have found the file in the appropriate directory, click its name to highlight it, then click the “Open” button. Click the “Submit” button in the bottom right corner of the screen. Your file has now been attached, and you are back at the original e-mail form. However, to send the e-mail with the attachment, you will still need to click the “Submit” button in the bottom right corner of the current page. (Note: You may have to scroll to the bottom of the web page to see the “Submit” button.)

Use Groups in Blackboard to create an area for a group of students. Then select options for the group: Virtual Classroom, Discussion Board, Dropbox for File Exchange, or E-mail tool.
To create a group:
Enter the course site.
Click Control Panel.
Under User Management, click Manage Groups.
Click the Add Group button.
Fill out the Group Name and Description, then select Options you want enabled for the group.
Click Submit.

To add students to the group:
Go back to the Manage Groups main menu.
Click the Modify button next to the desired group.
Click Add Users to Group.
Type the student's AccessID, click Username, and then click Search.
Click the checkbox next to the student's name and click Submit.

Use Spreadsheet View to save time.
Enter the course site.
Click Control Panel.
Under Assessment, click Online Gradebook.
Then click Spreadsheet View.
To edit all grades for one student, click the student's name, make any changes, and click Submit.
To edit/input grades for one gradebook item, click the item's title to display a screen where you can input grades for all students.

Virtual Classroom is a java-based synchronous chat utility that is included with each course site in Blackboard. The features of Virtual Classroom include:

Group Discussion Board (Chat) - The chat feature allows participants to "talk" in real-time via text messages.
Question and Answer (Q&A) - The Q&A feature allows students to submit questions directly to the instructor and allows the instructor to reply. Questions and answers can be public (accessible to everyone in chat) or private (between the instructor and student only).
Whiteboard - The whiteboard feature allows participants to use drawing tools to create images or graphics that can be seen and edited by everyone. It is also possible to open Web pages in the whiteboard and use the drawing tools to mark on them.
Slide Show - With the slide show, an instructor can set up multiple "slides" for a presentation. Each slide is actually a separate whiteboard, so participants can use the drawing tools to interactively mark on the slides.
Access Control - The instructor manages the Virtual Classroom with the Access Control feature.

The students need to right-mouse-click on the link to the file for a pop-up menu. Choose "save link as" or "save target as" to save the file to their hard drive. They can then view /print the PowerPoint file if they have PowerPoint installed on their machines.