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Staff Quickstart Guides to Blackboard

Blackboard Quickstart Guide for Instructors

1. Logging in

Your user ID and password are the same as those you use to access your email at NUI Galway

If you have difficulty logging in, follow online instructions on the login page. Call the ISS User Support Helpdesk on 091-495777 if you require more assistance.

2. The Blackboard My NUI Galway Page

1.     Tabs – these top tabs are navigation shortcuts to your Courses and the My NUI Galway page.
2.     Add Widget – button to add optional “boxes” that include content, links or tools used to personalise your page.
3.     My Announcements – widget which shows all your course and institution announcements.
4.     My Courses – directly access courses on which you are teaching.
5.     My Places – edit your personal information, upload a custom avatar and access your most frequently viewed courses.

3. Getting into Your Courses

Once you log in you will be in the My NUI Galway tab. Both the My NUI Galway and the Courses tabs display a list of your courses. The My NUI Galway tab has other modifiable content in the form of widgets.

The My Courses widget within the My NUI Galway tab displays a list of courses which you are currently teaching.

To make a new module request, follow these instructions to request access to a course which you are going to be teaching.

4. The Blackboard Course Interface

From your My Courses list, select one of your courses and you will see the Home Page of your course. When Edit Mode is on, you will be in the instructor view. To see a student view of your course, switch Edit Mode off.

Home Page is a course overview for students in your course, encompassing Announcements, Calendar items and Notifications.

Staff Details is a space to put your own profile, along with others involved in the course delivery.

Learning Outcomes is an area for you to define what a learner should understand and be able to do after taking your module.

Course Information is a content area for module information.

Content is an area for you to upload student resources such as lecture notes, assignments and videos.

Staff Notifications is like Home Page, but only relevant and visible to instructors.

My Grades is a link for students to access their course grades.

James Hardiman Library is a direct link to the campus library website.

Feedback is a place for you to place student surverys, course feedback, etc

Note: If you would like to further customise your site by changing the name of these menu items, or by adding or deleting additional tools, see resources at http://www.nuigalway.ie/blackboard

5. Navigating

Notice the Bread Crumb Trail on the top of your pages within each Blackboard course - see an example below.

The Breadcrumb trail is a great way to browse in Blackboard. Use the Bread Crumb Trail rather than the back button to navigate.

6. Adding Content to Your Course

Within your module, ensure you have Edit Mode switched on.

Open the Content area on your Course Menu. The four buttons displayed below allow you to create/upload various content to your course

Build Content: Add content to your course.
- Create: Upload PDFs, Word Docs, audio, video, etc. to your course.
- New Page: Add folders and pages to better organise your course.
- Mashups: Add Web 2.0 content, such as YouTube videos, Slideshare presentations and Flickr photos.
Create Assessment: Add tests, surveys and assignments (including Turnitin assignments) to your course.
Add Interactive Tool: Add tools such as Blogs, Journals, Wikis and Discussion Boards to your course.
Assign Textbook: Assign a textbook (either required or recommended) for your course

Notes: Do not copy text directly from Word to any Blackboard textbox. Use a text editor such as Wordpad or Notepad, copying from Word to the text editor and then to Blackboard.

Making Your Course Available to Students

By default, all courses created on Blackboard will be set to ’ Unavailable’. This means that the course is unavailable to students. You, as an instructor, can still access the course and can choose when to change this setting and to make it available to your students. This allows you to correctly set up your courses prior to students accessing them. When you are ready, you can make your Blackboard course available for students as follows:

1. Log into Blackboard

2. Find the course corresponding to the current academic year. This will be in the format "1213-XXXX Course Name"

3. Click into this course and go to Control Panel > Customisation > Properties

settings

4. Under Set Availability, change the Make Course Available option to Yes.

5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Submit button.

Remember, enrolled students can only access your course after you change the above setting.

Blackboard
This page was last updated Tuesday, November 27, 2012