As we are gearing up for the upcoming semester, eLearning would like to offer a few tips to help you prepare your Blackboard courses.
Tip 1: Make sure your course is available
At the start of the semester, your Blackboard shells must be made available to students so that they can access the course content. We no longer use the Qwickly tool to make our courses available. Instead, you will go to your course and click the lock located in the upper right corner of the screen.
= Course is available to students
= Course is unavailable to students
Tip 2: Set the external grade column in the Full Grade Center:
The External Grade is the Grade Center column connected to Blackboard course reports. If the External Grade Column is set up correctly, you will be able to retrieve real-time reports about user activity and grade correlations.
See our Step-By-Step Guide for more information.
Tip 3: Set due dates for assignments:
When setting up assignments, be sure to input due dates. This allows students to easily track upcoming assignments on the course calendar and within the Blackboard Student app.
Tip 4: Manage due dates in the course:
If you have copied your course, be sure to update the due dates for assignments. You can do this easily by using the Date Management tool. For more information, you can read our Step-By-Step Guide or watch Blackboard’s short Date Management video below.
Tip 5: Attend one of the new Brownbag sessions:
eLearning is offering a new Brownbag workshop: How to Monitor Your Students in Blackboard. In that 50-minute session, we will practice using the new attendance tool, discuss how to run course reports and look at course analytics to track student performance. Join us in one of the upcoming sessions!
Bonus Tip:
To ensure consistency between your course syllabus and Blackboard shell, match the point value of assignments in the syllabus with the value of assignments in the Full Grade Center.
If you have any questions about any of the tips listed, feel free to contact the eLearning team through BlackboardHelp@uams.edu.
Best Regards,
The UAMS eLearning Team