How to tell if a course is unavailable
When a course is created it is set to be unavailable to students.
Unavailable courses are also called private on your list of courses.
Students will be able to see the course in their course list, but will not be able to access it.
Make a course available or unavailable
From within the course
- Enter the course
- When the course is unavailable, it will say (Course is unavailable to students) and have a red padlock along the top bar.

- Select the Make course available to students button from the green box at the top of the page.
- Or select the padlock icon to toggle your course between Make available or Make Unavailable.
- For more help, see the Blackboard Help guide to course availability (Original Course View)
From the courses menu
In tile view

- An unavailable or private course has a padlock over it when you view the course in tile view.
- Select the … in the top right corner of the course tile.
- Select Open course or Make course private.
In list view

- An unavailable or private course has a padlock at the bottom left corner when you view the course in list view.
- Select the … on the right side of the course tile.
- Select Open course or Make course private.
Hiding a course
Mark a course as complete (Ultra courses only)
If you have a Blackboard Ultra Sandbox you may see the option to mark the course as complete.
Staff and students can still access the course to view the course content, but cannot make any changes.
This means you will not be able to make changes to the course, and students will not be able to participate in it (submit assignments, post messages on the discussion boards etc).