BlackBoard Question of the Week

Q. Can you tell me if all of my courses will remain listed in Blackboard until I graduate?  I took a class in the summer of 2011 and now it is not listed there.

A. Courses from a previous semester are typically removed around the middle of the following semester; however an instructor may manually make the course unavailable sooner than that.  Students will be removed from Fall 2011 term courses on March 4, 2012, three days after the last day to submit assignments to change an “I” grade to a letter grade.  If you would like access to a course that is no longer available, you will need to contact the instructor.

For future reference, the date when students are automatically removed from the previous term’s classes is posted under the “Students” heading on the Blackboard Important Dates webpage.

Q. After I log into Blackboard, when I click on my course, I get taken immediately to “Announcements” instead of to “Home Page” for the course. How can I change that?

A. If you have already created a Home Page for your course, you can change the course entry point so it opens to that new home page.

1. Log into Blackboard and go to your course.
2. Click on Customization, then Style  in the Control Panel.
3. Scroll down to 4. Select Course Entry Point.
4. Drop down the list and select the Home Page you created.
5. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Submit.

If your course doesn’t already have a Home Page and you want to create one, visit this link Your Course Home Page  and click on the link for Adding a Home Page.

Q. I have uploaded my syllabus, but my students are saying they cannot see my course when they log into Blackboard. What should I do?

A. At the beginning of each semester, it’s important to remember to make your courses available — if you don’t, students cannot see their course titles on their “My Institution” page, even if they are registered for your course and their name appears on the roster. In order for students to see your course, you must manually make the course available in the course options settings in the Control Panel.

For instructions in both text and video on how to make your course available, visit Making Your Course Available .

Q. Can professors grant access to their Blackboard courses to other professors in much the same way that access to Groupwise e-mail account owners can grant access to other users?

A. Blackboard can add a colleague to your course in a specific role that will allow him or her varying levels of access depending on your intent:

• Guest access – ability to view only those parts of the course you as the instructor manually select (view is limited to content areas)
• Course builder – ability to view all content, use communication tools, add material and delete material from the course
• Teaching Assistant – ability to do everything a course builder does with the additional ability to view the Grade Center, and make changes to the Grade Center (enter grades, override grades, change grades, clear attempts, view attempts, etc.)

To request any of these types of access to your course for another professor, send the name of the instructor, the course id, e.g., BIOL_100_101_7383_102, that you wish the instructor to access, and the type of role you would like the instructor to have in that course to Blackboard@luc.edu .