Blackboard Beginning of Semester

Course Settings allows you to customize your course to suit your needs and those of your students. Course Settings appears at the top right corner of an Ultra course if the user has privileges to view or manage settings.

You can manage course access state settings through the Course Settings page.

• Close Course. When you select a course as closed, it continues to appear in the course listing, but students cannot access it. When Close Course is not selected, the course is open, and students can access it. This function previously was called Open/Private and found in the Details & Actions panel.
• Complete Course. When the course is completed, students can access the content but cannot participate. Additionally, you can no longer make any changes once a course is completed.

At the top of your course, next to Course Settings, an indicator displays Open, Closed, or Complete based on the course state. Your students also see this indicator at the top of the course.

Additionally, instructors can access Course Settings from the Courses page. From the three dot menu, the instructor can select Course Settings.

Course Duration defines the time in which students may interact with a course. Students are always allowed to access some courses. Other courses have restrictions so students can only access them for a specific time. This is determined by Course Duration settings. 

In addition to system administrators, you (or any user with the correct privileges, such as teaching assistants), can modify the course duration settings for your Ultra courses.

Select Course Settings at the top right corner of your Ultra course. The Course Duration settings appear as a drop-down menu that contains these settings:

• Ongoing. No restriction to access.
• Restrict by dates. Set dates and times for student access to begin, end, or both.
• Restrict by number of days from enrollment. Select the number of days after enrollment in which a student is no longer able to access a course.
• Restricted by the start and end dates of the associated term. This option only appears when a term is defined for the course.

Students can't access closed courses regardless of the course duration. Closed courses don't appear in the Course Catalog.

If students try to access the course in Blackboard before the set start date, the title of the course will be grayed out and will be followed by a message indicating when the course will be available. [View screenshot]

Use course terms to define the beginning and end of a period of study. You can make courses available during a specific course term.

1. From the left navigation, chose Admin (must have access to view this tab) . [view screenshot]
2. On the Administrator Panel, in the Courses section, select Terms.  [view screenshot]
3. To create a new term, select Create Term.
4. -OR-
5. To edit an existing term, open the term's menu and select Edit. [view screenshot]
6. On the Edit Term page, type a Name and optional Description.
7. For Availability, select Yes to make the term available to courses throughout Blackboard Learn. Select No to make the term unavailable. [view screenshot]
8. Set the Duration for the term.
   • Continuous: Create a term with no beginning or end.
   • Select Dates: Set calendar dates for the beginning and end of the term. The Start Date must be earlier than the End Date. Courses become available on the morning of the start date (00:01). Courses become unavailable on of the evening of the end date (23:59).
   • Days from the end of enrollment: Define a course term as beginning at the close of course enrollment and lasting a specified number of days.
9. Select Submit.

For more information about Terms, visit the Blackboard Terms page.

First, export the test from the current course:

1. In the new course, click the plus sign (+) where you want the content to be added or click the three dots (...) at the top right of the course content list
2. Click Copy Content from the menu
3. Identify the item(s) you want to copy (you can navigate to multiple courses and copy all of the items in a single operation)

Copy Content from an Original Course to an Ultra Course
If you are copying content from a course in Original Course View into a course in the Ultra Course View, follow the same procedure for copying content into an Ultra Course. You can copy a single item (like a Test or Assignment) or folders that contain multiple items. Blackboard will convert the content during the copy process if it is possible to do so.

Note that we do not recommend copying an entire course. While it is possible to do so, your folder structure may be compromised if you have more than 1 level of folder in your Original Course. The Ultra Course View only allows for 2 levels of folders, which includes the Content Areas on your course menu in the Original Course View. This also does not give you the opportunity to redesign your course structure and navigation to take advantage of the more modern interface in the Ultra Course View. Instead of using copying an entire course from the Original Course View, we recommend building a new structure in the Ultra Course View and copying select items that would be time consuming to rebuild, such as Tests.

If you want to enroll multiple users in a course, enroll them in groups based on their course roles. You can select one role per set of users. For example, if a course has one or more instructors, enroll them first. Then, move on to students.

Optionally, you can enroll all users with a role of Student and then edit individual users to change their course roles. For example, if you want to enroll 23 students, 1 instructor, and 1 teaching assistant, you can enroll all 25 users with the role of Student. Then, edit the two users to change their roles to Instructor and Teaching Assistant.

1. On the Administrator Panel in the Courses section, select Courses.
2. Search for a course.
3. On the Courses page, open the course's menu.
4. Select Enrollments.
5. On the Enrollments page, select Enroll Users.
6. On the Add Enrollments page, if you know the users' exact usernames, type them in the Username box separated by commas. If you don't know the usernames, select Browse to search for users. Select the check box for each user to enroll, then select Submit.
7. In the Role menu, select a course role for this group of users, such as Instructor. The role selected applies to this course only. Your institution can create custom roles.
8. Define the Enrollment Availability for this group of users. To enroll users but make the course unavailable to them, select No. To enroll users and make the course available to them immediately, select Yes.
9. Select Submit.

1. Click the Roster link in the Details & Actions panel to the left of the Course Content page
2. Click the Enroll People icon in the upper right (a plus sign (+) in a circle)
3. In the search box type a name or username to reveal a list of matches (using an A- or Z-ID is recommended for individuals with common names)
4. Select one or more people
5. Choose a role for each selected person
6. Click the Save button

NOTE: Users listed as an Instructor in the course are able to enroll other uses for any role in the same course.  Any users listed as a TA can enroll only students in a course.

Availability: You cannot enroll users who have been made Unavailable in the Blackboard course. Contact Ed-Tech at ed-tech@bcm.edu for assistance enrolling Unavailable users. Users who have been enrolled in your course, but made Unavailable by you, will not see your course in the Courses tab and do not have access to your course.

1. Under Details & Actions, click Roster.
2. In the roster page, click on the users name or the ellipses icon next to their name.
3. In the Member Information page, click on the trash can icon next to the user's name.
4. You will be prompted to confirm by a pop-up dialogue box in the top of the screen. Click Remove Member.

Note: Removing students from a course also deletes all their course data (tests, surveys, discussions, assignments, grades.). 

Removing Manually Added Instructors:
If you would like to remove a manually added instructor from a course, contact the Ed-Tech at ed-tech@bcm.edu for assistance.