Staff Guide – your guide to what is changing in Blackboard Navigation and actions staff and course instructors may need to take.
From Saturday 28 January, you will see a new homepage and left-hand navigation menu when you log into Blackboard. These changes affect how you navigate around the system, but will not change Blackboard courses.
Why is Blackboard changing to ULTRA Navigation?
We know from staff and student feedback that it can be difficult to find your way around the original Blackboard platform. That’s why we’re implementing a new homepage from the latest version of Blackboard, called Blackboard Ultra Base Navigation. This will offer a more modern navigation, providing quick access to the most critical information from across all courses.
Key Benefits
- The Ultra navigation menu has a modern intuitive design, making it more user-friendly.
- The new design is accessible and will re-size for different devices.
- Staff and students can access courses and key information quickly and easily.
See the checklist of actions that course INSTRUCTORS* and/or ALL STAFF may need to take to make the most of new Blackboard Navigation features.
*Course Teaching Assistants & School Office Admins can also make changes on behalf of Instructors.
What is on the new navigation menu?
Institution Page
You will be taken directly to the new Blackboard Institution Page where students can view key university announcements and access helpful information and resources, such as their timetable.
ALL STAFF
Look out for additional staff bulletins and links on the Institution Page to support your use of Blackboard and online teaching and alert you to updates and issues.
Activity Stream
Identify at a glance which activities require your immediate attention with this curated list of what’s new, and what’s coming up.
ALL STAFF
Personalise the amount of detail you see in your Activity Stream and adjust email and app push notifications. To do this, select the cog/settings icon in the top right-hand corner of this screen. See our guide on how to update your notification settings, for more information.
A student’s Activity Stream will display University and course announcements, due dates and alerts about new marks and course activity.
INSTRUCTORS
Find out more about your Activity Stream here.
Find out about what students see in their Activity Stream.
Courses
Quickly navigate to your courses with the ability to search, filter, and favourite them. The layout and functions of courses will not change with this move to Ultra Navigation.
– Customise and filter your Courses List
- Organise your courses by List or Tile view.
- Search for courses and Filter to see courses you teach and hidden courses.
- All courses that you are enrolled on appear in the list of Current Courses. Use the drop-down meant at the top of the page to switch between groups of courses.
- Favourite courses (select the star icon) you visit regularly so they appear at the top of the Courses list.
For more information, see the Blackboard guide to finding your courses and editing the course view.
– Editing a course image, hiding courses and making courses available to students.
Staff can select the 3 dots on the right of the course title for more course display options:
ALL STAFF
Hide Courses if you don’t want them to appear in your Courses list and if you don’t want to receive any notifications from the course. Other course users will still be able to see the course in their list. Use the Courses Filter option to see your hidden courses.
INSTRUCTORS – make your course available or unavailable to students.
Make course private = make unavailable to students.
Open course = make available to students.
INSTRUCTORS – Add or edit a course Banner.
If you do not have a course Banner, Blackboard will automatically add a thumbnail image to the course tile on the Courses Navigation page. You do not need to change your course banner, but if you wish to do so, please see this guide on Customising your course Banner and ensure you choose an image with the appropriate licensing agreement. If you had an existing Banner, the size of the banner might be slightly altered in your Blackboard course.
– Navigating between Courses pages and Blackboard Navigation
- From the Courses page, select a course title to be taken to the course.
- If you follow a link to an item in a Blackboard Course, use the breadcrumb trail at the top of the page to return to the Blackboard course.
- Only use the blue X icon when you want to leave a course and return to the Blackboard Navigation page.
Calendar
The Blackboard calendar will show key University dates, due dates for assignments set in Blackboard and events added by course Instructors. Assignments set outside of the Blackboard platform will not be added automatically, for example from eAssignment.
Timetables can be accessed via the link Blackboard Institution page.
ALL STAFF
Select the cog at the top of the Calendar to edit which courses’ dates are displayed in your Calendar.
INSTRUCTORS
Add due dates to all assignments created in Blackboard so they appear automatically in the students’ Calendar and Activity Stream.
INSTRUCTORS
Select + at the top of the Calendar to add:
Office Hours to any course if you want to let students know when you are available for meetings.
Add an Event for any course meetings or assignment due dates not in the student Timetable or added via Blackboard due-dates.
For more information see the Blackboard guide to the Calendar.
Messages
The messages tool is not currently used at the University of Southampton. Instructors can send messages to students but students cannot reply or create their own messages. Messages will also get sent through to email.
INSTRUCTORS
Continue to use Course Announcements and email to communicate with students
.
Marks
Marks will show you the results of tests and assignments taken within a Blackboard course. Students should not rely on only these marks as the sole indicator of final grades. Ratified marks can be viewed on Banner Self-Service.
INSTRUCTORS
Navigate to the list of this year’s courses by using the navigation arrow at the top of the Marks screen. View and access work that needs marking. Blackboard are planning an update to improve the navigation on this page.
INSTRUCTORS
From March 20th the TOTAL column in the Blackboard Grade Centre will be hidden for all courses. We are making this change to:
· Prevent the accidental release of marks
· Block the “How am I doing?” marks comparison view.
See our guide on managing the student’s view of marks for advice on how to ensure marks are not visible before you intend to show them.
Assist
The assist area provides links to academic tools and support available to the University of Southampton students. Raise a ticket with ServiceLine if you would like a tool or services added to Assist.
Your Profile Page
Most information here is pulled in automatically from other systems and cannot be edited.
- You can update your preferred first name in Subscribe.
ALL STAFF
Upload a profile picture.
Edit name Pronunciation if it would be helpful to add a phonetic spelling and recording of your name pronunciation for other users.
For more detailed information, see the Blackboard help guide to the Profile page.
Tools
Most Blackboard tools are accessed inside courses. Most users will not need to access these system tools.
- Staff Enroller -(Library staff only) Please see our guide Blackboard tool – Using the Library Staff Enroller.
Blackboard Ultra – what is next?
We are planning to run a project to fully upgrade our current version of Blackboard Original to Blackboard Ultra and more information will be shared in due course.