Blackboard Admin – solving issues with student course enrolments

Administrators guide: This guide is to support administrative teams with Blackboard student enrolments and how these relate to Banner module and programme enrolment.

Contact Us

Contact the iSoltuions Eduction Application Support team via Service Line if you have specific Blackboard Support questions or need to forward tickets to Blackboard Support.

Post general questions and feedback in the Blackboard channel of the Banner users Team. We welcome any feedback on these guides and we can also run Q&A and training sessions.

Important information

We are aiming for all student enrolments on Blackboard courses to come from Banner module or programme enrolments. If you are manually adding a student, or student group, to a Blackboard course please check the options below and contact Education Application Support if you need advice.

Any changes to enrolments in Banner will appear in Blackboard the following morning (around 6 am).

Useful Guides

• Manage Blackboard course enrolments.
• The different types of Backboard courses and how to request them.
• Request and manage merged enrolments.
• Alternatives to arbitrary courses.

Webinars

The iSoltuions Education Applicatoin support team will run pre-semester Q&A sessions for School Office teams to keep you up to date with changes and issues as well as being an opportunity for us to hear your issues and questions.

• Link to the September ’23 Blackboard Q&A for School Office Teams

Jargon

• Bb = Blackboard
• EdApps = iSolutions Education Application Support Team.

Students need access to a Blackboard course connected to a Banner module

A student is not registered on the module in Banner so cannot see a Blackboard course (current academic year).

If a student can’t see a Blackboard course, it is generally because they are not registered on the module in Banner.

Banner module status = none; changed to RE.

• Check the module status in Banner.
• Register the student on the module in Banner.
• Updates to the Banner will appear in Blackboard the following morning.

A student has been registered on the module in Banner today, but needs urgent access to Blackboard, before the data update tomorrow morning.

Banner module status = RE.

• If a student needs urgent access to the module today, add them via Banner and THEN manually add them to the Blackboard course. The manual enrolment will be replaced with the Banner enrolment the next day.

A student has been dropped or suspended from the module in Banner, but needs access to the Blackboard course (current academic year).

A student will have a disabled Blackboard enrolment if they are dropped or suspended from a module. The student will not appear on the course users list, but when they are added back to the module in Banner (RE), all their course activity, including assignment submissions and feedback, will re-appear.

Students with a disabled Blackboard enrolment cannot be added to the course manually. You will see the error message “student is already enrolled” even though they don’t appear on the List. See list below for solutions.

Banner module status = DD or SU; changed back to RE.

• Students will appear back in Blackboard the following morning. If they need urgent access today, raise a ticket with Blackboard/Education Application Support and request the Bb disabled enrolment be re-enabled – after the Banner enrolment has been updated to RE.

Banner module status = DD, but the student enrolment has been moved to a similar CRN.

• Contact the course instructor or module lead. Can enrolments be merged into a single-parent course? Or, does the course content need to be rolled to the correct CRN (only do this if teaching has not started)
• DO NOT try to manually add the student to the dropped module – see the guide below to merged enrolments in Blackboard.

Banner module status = DD or SU, but the student cannot be added back in Banner.

• You will not be able to add the student to the Blackboard course manually because they have a disabled Banner enrolment. Raise a ticket with Blackboard/Education Application Support and ask for the disabled enrolment to be re-enabled. ONLY do this if the student is not enrolled on a similar module that can be merged, or cannot be added in Banner and will not need assessment data recorded in this CRN.

Banner student enrolment status is SS or SU

• Suspended students do not currently have access to Blackboard and will have a Blackboard disabled enrolment on any modules they have been dropped from. This policy is under review for students who are suspended with services. If an SS student needs access to Blackboard courses, contact ServiceLine.

A student needs to be added to a Blackboard course from a previous year.

The Banner/Blackboard data feed is only updated for the current academic year enrolments.

• Manually add the student to Blackboard courses if the course is NOT in the current academic year.
• If the student had/has a dropped(DD) or suspended (SU) enrolment in Banner they will have a disabled course enrolment and you will not be able to manually add them. Raise a ticket with Blackboard/Education Application Support and request the Bb disabled enrolment be re-enabled.
• If the student has left the university and has an Alumni IT account, their Blackboard account will be disabled. Raise a ticket with Blackboard/Education Application Support and we can re-enable the account and re-enable the Blackboard course enrolment. This will not give the student access to Blackboard but all student submissions and activity will re-appear.

A student is enrolled correctly on a module in Banner but needs access to a different Blackboard course (CRN) where teaching is delivered.

Merge module enrolments in Blackboard.

• It is important that students are NOT manually enrolled on the teaching module in Blackboard. Enrolments can be merged in Blackboard into the Parent course where teaching is delivered. This will ensure all students have access to the correct course and instructors can identify different groups of students.
• Merged enrolments will roll over from year to year and not need to be updated.
• Module Leads can manage Merged/unmerged enrolments via the link in this guide. Otherwise, raise a ticket with Blackboard/Education Application Support to request merged modules.

Students need access to a Programme Information course.

Blackboard course ID starts with PROG-.

• Programme courses are set up in Blackboard to support Programme Leads to deliver programme-level content and communication. Students are added to Programme Courses via Programme Codes.
• See the link in the Programme Course eLearn guide to the UoS Course Builder tool where you can request a Programme Course and view enrolment codes associated with an existing Programme Course. You can check that the student’s programme code is linked to the course.
• Raise a ticket with ServiceLine with any questions about enrolments or to request changes to Programme Course enrolments.
• EdApps are working on adding more editing functions to the Course Builder tool.

Students need to be manually added to an arbitrary course.

Custom (arbitrary) courses should only be used if it is not possible to set up enrolments via Banner or if we do not have an automated process for course set-up and user enrolment. We are discouraging the use of arbitrary courses with manual enrolment or custom enrolment feeds – this is better for the student experience and cuts down on administration time.

• If you are manually adding students to a custom (arbitrary) course, please see this guide for alternatives to arbitrary courses.
• Contact Blackboard/Education Application Support for advice on replacing arbitrary courses or ask the course instructor to get in touch with our team.
• If you do need to manually add or edit student enrolments, see the guide to Managing Blackboard course enrolments.