Staff guide: An overview of merged enrolments and how to manage and request them.
What are merged enrolments?
If you are teaching closely related modules, Blackboard enrolments can be merged into a single Blackboard parent course.
Do not manually add students from one course into another – always merge enrolments so they stay in sync with Banner and student activity is archived.
- Staff and students enrolled on a child course will be automatically enrolled on the parent course.
- Merging only affects Blackboard enrolments – Banner and Banner Gradebook enrolments are not altered.
- You should only merge modules where student enrolments do not overlap.
Contact your school office if you have questions about course enrolment.
How do I know if a course has been merged?
When courses are merged users will see a message in the Course Description about merged enrolments:
Staff view of merged courses
- Staff enrolled on the parent course will only see the parent course. The child course(s) will no longer appear in their Blackboard Courses list.
Student view of merged courses
- Students enrolled on a child course will continue to see the child course title and ID displayed in their list of courses. They will be taken to the content of the parent course when they follow the link to the course and will be unaware of the merge.
- Notifications will appear to come from the course they are enrolled on in Banner (either parent or child).
- Students’ view of Blackboard merged modules will match their timetable and Banner enrolment.
How to request enrolments are merged into a single course in Blackboard
Blackboard Course Manager for Module Leads
Module leads can view and manage merged enrolments via our CourseManager tool.
Follow this link to our Course Manager tool.
- Follow the link to Course Manager to display all courses you are enrolled on as an Instructor.
- You can view courses currently merged – listed as Parent and Child courses.
- Use the Merge Child Courses link to merge child courses into a course where you want to deliver teaching – the Parent course.
- Use the link Remove Merge to remove a Child course from the Parent.
If courses are unavailable to students the merge/unmerge will occur immediately, otherwise, a ServiceLine ticket will be generated.
Request merged enrolments for Non-Module Leads
Raise a ServiceLine ticket with the description “Blackboard merge modules” and let us know:
- Parent module code
- Child module code(s)
Merging Dual Coded Modules in 24-25
If you are merging year 2 and year 3 modules in Semester 2 of 2024-25, you are advised to use the 3rd year module as the parent module. This will keep the module in Original format. If you need to re-merge your module to change to the year 3 module please raise a ServiceLine ticket.
Automatic Groups for merged modules
COMMING SOON (November 2024) – the EdApps team are working to create automatic groups for each module CRN included in the parent course.
- Go to the Groups tab in the course menu.
- You will see a Merged modules Groups set.
- A group will be created for each module CRN included in the parent course.
- The group membership will update and stay in sync with Banner module enrolments. Contact your Administration and Assessment team if a student is enrolled on the wrong module in Banner.
- You cannot manually edit the group membership. Set up a new Group Set if you want to organise students into groups not based on Banner enrolment.
- You can edit the Group names.
- The group set is hidden from students by default, but you can make it visible if you want to use the groups for group work and collaboration.
Using Groups to differentiate content and messages in a merged course
You can create a Group for each cohort in a merged course and then use Release Conditions (Adaptive Release in Original courses) to show content to the different groups or message or email groups separately. You cannot currently send separate Announcements to Groups.
See the guides:
Original courses only: Managing students in a merged course
View Child course enrolments from the User list
Go to Users and Groups and then select Users.
If you see a column stating “Child Course ID” then this is a merged course.
Staff and students who are originally enrolled on the merged child course will have this course ID listed in the column “Child Course ID”.
Viewing the Blackboard Grade Centre by module enrolment
You can add a column to the Blackboard Grade Centre to show the Child course ID of users. You will be able to sort and filter the Grade Centre by student cohort.
- Go to Course Management/ Grade Centre/ Full Grade Centre.
- Select Manage/Column Organisation.
- Tick Child Course ID.
- Select Show/Hide and then Show Selected Columns.
Using the Blackboard Student Group feature to differentiate cohorts in a merged course
You can manually set up and add students to Groups based on their original module code (CRN). You can then add content for the different groups by using Adaptive Release, such as different assignments, different due dates, discussion boards, content availability and email communication etc. You can also filter the Grade Centre by Group as well as setting up Grade Centre Smart Views for each group and view Turnitin submissions by Group.
Guide to using Groups in Blackboard.
Guide to managing Content availability with Adaptive Release.