Staff Guide: Five steps to Access and Personalise a Blackboard Ultra Course and Check Enrolments
These three quick set up guides are designed to take you through the essential steps to getting your Blackboard Course ready for teaching.
- Quick Set Up – Part 1: Personalise your Course and check Enrolments.
- Quick Set Up – Part 2: Plan the Layout and Add Content to your Course.
- Quick Set Up – Part 3: Review Content and Engage with your Students.
- Extended Full Checklist to Prepare for Teaching on Blackboard Ultra.
- For more information on Assessment, see the Overview of Assessments eLearn guide.
This is Part 1, which will take you through the 5 steps to personalise your Blackboard course with staff enrolments and course images.
Step 1: Check Course List for Access
Blackboard Courses linked to modules are automatically provisioned on Blackboard. You can find them by logging onto Blackboard and selecting Courses. You will see a list of the courses that you are enrolled on.
If you cannot see a course, then you may not be enrolled on that course in Blackboard or Banner. There are lots of ways to request access and staff can be manually added to a Blackboard course via the Class Register. You do not need to raise a Serviceline ticket to gain access.
See the eLearn guide explaining how to request access to a Blackboard module.
Check your course isn’t hidden by selecting Filters, then Hidden from Me to view any courses that have been hidden from the Course search.
Step 2: Check Role on a Course
In Blackboard Ultra, staff enrolled on a course as an instructor are visible to students under the Course Staff menu. All staff enrolled as an instructor will appear on the list with the “primary instructor” appearing first in the list.
If you are the primary instructor and are not appearing at the top of the list, then go to the Class Register, select the three dots next to your name and Member Information. Under course settings, tick Primary instructor then select Save.
For more information, see our eLearn guide about the Class Register.
Step 3: Change the Course Banner
Blackboard Courses are provisioned with a generic course banner image which we recommend you change to personalise your module with a relevant image. You can do this from your Course by selecting the pen icon on the Banner image or Edit display settings in the Details and Actions menu.
For a more detailed guide see Changing your Course Banner image.
Step 4: Enrol additional staff on the course
Some enrolments for Blackboard Courses occur via a feed from Banner i.e. if you are enrolled on a module in Banner then you will be enrolled with that role on the Blackboard course e.g. Instructor, teaching assistant, module administrator (A&A team).
To enrol additional staff, go to the Class Register, select the plus icon to search for and add additional staff with an appropriate role.
Students should not be enrolled manually onto a Blackboard course. Contact your A&A team for any questions about student enrolment.
To manually enrol, unenrol or edit the role of staff on a Blackboard course, see our eLearn guide on managing the Course Staff.
Step 5: View Student Information including Student Support Recommendations
There are a variety of tools to support you getting to know your students including the Class Register and Photo Roster. Using these tools you can view student photos, find their ID number and basic profile information, print and export class lists.
It’s important to familiarise yourself with any Student Support Recommendations so that you can support all students taking your module.
For more information about these tools, see our eLearn guide on Class Register and Photo Roster.
For more information about supporting students with additional requirements, see the Student Disability and Inclusion team sharepoint for staff.
Step 11 will explain how you can use Ally Report to make simple checks and changes to improve content accessibility for students.
You may also want to:
Merge Modules: Are you teaching the same content to different years or to undergraduates and postgraduates?
Create Student Groups: Are you teaching via seminar groups or planning group assignments?
Personalise your Blackboard Profile: Have you added a picture or a name pronounciation so students can get to know you?
Next Steps:
For a more detailed Checklist see our eLearn guide Blackboard Ultra – 2024-25 Prepare for the new academic year.