Course Readiness and Blackboard Resources
To reuse a course for an upcoming semester, you should:
- Confirm your access to the class to the empty course shell about 2 weeks before the upcoming semester in Blackboard.
- If you are teaching multiple sections of the same course you can request to have the student enrollments of both sections merged into one site by completing the Merge Multiple Course Sections Request form.
- Course copy from the previous term’s course into the current instance of the course, reviewing the course copy to make sure all documents, content, and links are working properly. Instructions to copy courses.
- Update and upload pertinent documents: for example the syllabus and assignment documents. Learn how to attach files from course files in blackboard
- Update all course dates to reflect the current semester’s calendar.
- Manage the discussion boards by deleting previous term activity. Learn how to delete previous term activity in the discussion board.
- Change any adaptive release schedules that need to be updated. Learn how to update adaptive release schedules.
- Manage your course announcements by deleting previous term activity. Lean how to manage your course announcements.
- Create a welcome message for your students through the announcement tool. Learn how to create a welcome message for your students through the announcement tool.
- Assign your textbook to your course using Follett Discover. Learn how from these videos: Follet Discover Video 1 and Follet Discover Video 2. See the adopting textbooks guide (PDF).
- Make your course available to your students. For students to access their Blackboard courses, the you must make the courses available to students by the first day of class. For winter courses, make courses available one week prior to the start date to allow students to pre-read and prepare for the intense experience of a 2-3 week online course. Watch this video to learn how to make your course available to your students.
- Locate the class roster to confirm students are registered. Learn how to locate the class roster to confirm students are registered.
- Email your students prior to the first day of class to share course expectations, and your communication methods and response time expectations. Learn how best to email your students prior to the first day of class.
For any inquiries or support contact Ralph Fasano rfasano@fitchburgstate.edu, Director of Digital Learning.