Blackboard Organizations expand the scope of the enterprise Blackboard system at Baylor College of Medicine to support non-course groups. These organizations can serve as an online meeting space for groups that would like a space for information sharing, collaboration, and communication. Blackboard organizations are available for groups that support the academic, administrative, and research missions of the college, as well as recognized student groups (Note: Student groups must have a faculty/staff sponsor). Some examples might include faculty and/or staff organizations, departmental organizations, research groups, and student organizations recognized by Student Affairs.
Organizations provide a collection of web-based tools, making it easy for group members to participate in on-line activities such as:
- Document sharing (papers, agendas, minutes, reports, etc.)
- Planning and administration (announcements, calendar)
- Communication (messaging, calendar)
- Groups (communications and document sharing between members)
- On-line surveys
- Links to other on-line resources (web pages, databases)
A Blackboard Organization is managed by one or more leaders who can build the content of the site and enable tools for the participants. Additional participants may be assigned support roles such as assistant or builder which have limited administrative privileges. Participants may access materials and participate in an organization, but not change settings or add content.
All organization requests must be submitted through Ed-Tech.
- A Blackboard organization will be created only after Ed-Tech receives a request from a BCM faculty or staff member acting as the group sponsor. The group sponsor will be required to provide all necessary information to ensure compliance with this service description.
- Blackboard Organizations are limited to groups that support the educational, research, or administrative mission of the college.
- All student groups must have a faculty or staff sponsor to use a Blackboard organization.
- Blackboard organization participants that need access to the control panel must be granted access by Blackboard administrators following a request by the organization leader or group sponsor and completion of the required overview by the leader.
- Each Blackboard organization is allocated up to 2GB of storage space on the Blackboard server.
- All participants in Blackboard organizations are asked to comply with Copyright Law concerning materials placed on the web. In particular, read the section on Digital Rights Management and Fair Use.
- All organizations created in Blackboard default to being unavailable to participants. While the organization leader will have access to the course, organization participants will not be able to see the site. This ensures organization participants do not see content until the organization leader is ready for them to see it and explicitly makes it available to them.
- Organizations can be disabled or removed by request by the organization leader and/or the group sponsor.
View Users and Groups for more information.
- The organization sponsor is the faculty or staff member that has oversight responsibilities for groups using a Blackboard organization. The group sponsor is responsible for monitoring and maintaining appropriate behaviors in the Blackboard organization. The group sponsor may also act as a organization leader.
- An organization leader is a user who has permission to access the control panel of a Blackboard organization. The organization leader can add content and change the site settings and appearance. An organization leader can be a student, staff member, or a faculty member. There may be more than one organization leader per organization in Blackboard.
- An organization participant is a person who participates in a Blackboard organization. Organization participants can access materials in a site and utilize the available tools, but they can not access the control panel to add content or change the site settings.