How to Prepare Courses for Graduate School

If you have a new empty Blackboard course, or a recently converted course, there are several steps you'll need to take to prepare your course.

1. Make note of the course defaults

There are several default areas/tools that are added to every course. In the left navigation area, there are links to Course Info (more on this below), followed by Notifications, and at the bottom of the list, Bb Tools.These are the basic non-content areas of your course.

The other sections, Course Content, Lecture Recordings, Discussion Board, and Resources, are provided for your convenience, but you may delete the areas you do not need. Note that all of these areas are by default hidden from students (note the box with a slash through it).

2. Edit your Course Info elements

The Course Info area of your Blackboard course is a required set of information. The Course Info area doesn't contain any course content, but does provide students with information similar to what they might find in a course catalog. This information is visible to all Blackboard users. (If you click the double-chevrons next to Course Info, you'll see that this course area permits guests. In this case, "guests" refers to Blackboard users who are not enrolled in your course. This does NOT mean that people without an MSSM Blackboard account can see your Course Info area.)

Every MSSM course contains these elements, and you simply need to edit the elements.

• 1. Course Description: (in some cases this will already be filled in based on information you provided the registrar)

  2. Contact Info: add in the primary instructors, and TAs; specify how you would like to be reached (email, phone, office hours, etc.)

  3. Schedule of Meeting Times: this can be an attachment, or a link to a calendar, or edited in place

  4. Learning Objectives: can be edited in place

  5. Grading Policies: can be edited in place

  6. Required Purchases: can be edited in place. By default this section states that there are no required purchases; if there are software, lab, or textbook requirements, however, this is the place to indicate this to students.

  7. Course Evaluation: this is a link to the course evaluation. It is set to be hidden by default, and can be added at a later date.

3. Add your course content

Add your course materials, assignments, and assessments. You can use the provided areas, or create new content areas. How you organize your course content is up to you, however, if you need suggestions on how to organize your course materials, the Blackboard team can meet with you and/or your Teaching Assistants.

If you do create new content areas (left navigation links), by default they will not be shown to students. This is so that you can build out your course, and then reveal the areas when you are ready.

4. Add instructors and teaching assistants

The students for your course will be enrolled via the registrar, but you will need to add other instructors and teaching assistants to the course.

5. Make your course areas available

As a reminder, by default your course is set to be "unavailable" so that you can prepare your course.

So, when you are ready for students to view the content of your course, you will need to set your course to be "available."

6. Additional Notes

Final Grades for courses are now sent to the Registrar via Blackboard. In your course in the Grade Center there should be a column called Final Grade. This column is the one that will be read by the Registrar's system. Please do not change the name of the column. You may change where it appears in the gradebook, but it is important that the name stays the same.

Final Grades are due 1 week after the end of the semester.

Courses will be removed 3 months after the end of the academic year.

7. Questions?

You can contact the Academic IT Support Center at ASCIT@mssm.edu.