Hiding Courses in Blackboard

Quite a few faculty members have asked about hiding courses in Blackboard.


Depending on the number of courses you teach, you may have 10 or more courses (spanning various semesters) on your Blackboard homepage.

After logging in to Blackboard

Click on the 'sprocket' on the top right of the module.

Personalizing Your Course List

Select (really Un-Select) Courses you don't Want

Un-select the course(s) you don't want on the front screen.

Voilà -- It's Gone!

If you need further help, please call the 24 hour Blackboard helpline at 202-274-5665 or toll free: 877-736-2585. 

Exporting Your Blackboard Course

This brief demo will discuss how to backup your Blackboard course. For a text-based tutorial, view this site from UNC Chapel Hill. Each faculty member is given a set allocation in Blackboard. While UDC does backup all courses, you can keep a copy of your Blackboard site as a file. This file contains the full content of your Blackboard site and can be used to copy the course for a new semester or clear space in your account.

Access the Archive Course Link

NOTE: Use the IMPORT PACKAGE option to upload (import) your archived course into a new course shell.

Select Export

Choose to Copy the Course

I recommend copying all content. You can always choose NOT to import items, so it's better to save everything. Once you hit SUBMIT, the system will take a few minutes (you will receive an email when done) to package the file

Save the File

Save the file to your computer. You may want to email Ed Jones if you are experiencing space difficulties. He can remove your old site and clear up space in your account.
If you need further help, please call the 24 hour Blackboard helpline at 202-274-5665 or toll free: 877-736-2585.

Courses and Accessibility

Throwback Post from the Focus on Faculty Newsletter

Ever wanted to know if your courses meet accessibility guidelines?  Well your chance to find out is only a click away.

Did you know? The major categories of disability types include:

Visual

Blindness, low vision, color-blindness

Hearing

Deafness

Motor

Inability to use a mouse, slow response time, limited fine motor control

Cognitive

Learning disabilities, distractibility, inability to remember or focus on large amounts of information

Many web resources can assist you in building course material and content that meets ADA requirements. Please check out WebAIM.

http://webaim.org --> Web Accessibility in Mind (WebAIM) is an initiative from Utah State University. This organization hosts a

powerful website full of resources where you can determine whether or not your website is accessible.

Some content includes:

A link to evaluate cognitive web accessibility;

A link to a Section 508 Checklist;

A webpage accessibility checker;

Articles on accessibility;

Templates for creating accessible web content;

Captioning Resource List; and

So much more.

Also check out a presentation archive on Educause:

http://connect.educause.edu/Library/Abstract/TheAccessibilityofCourseM/42027?time=1237761547

The presentation will highlight accessibility problems and strengths of WebCT, Blackboard, Desire2Learn, and Sakai and present

recommendations for improvement. The authors explore common tools (e-mail, quizzes, discussions, content delivery) from

the students' point of view.