Staff guide: You can request a Blackboard Programme Course to hold programme-level information and communication.
See this article for the latest news on preparing Programme courses for 22/23
What is a Programme Course for?
A Programme Course is part of the Academic Transitions Support Toolkit and can support Programme Leaders to open a communication channel and develop online community with a programme cohort. See the CHEP Resouces Hub to view case studies and further guidance on how a Programme Course can be used.
- A Programme course helps to give your programme an identity and sense of community.
- Course Announcements & emails can be used for communication with the programme cohort.
- With the new Blackboard/Teams integration tool you can create a Team directly from your Blackboard course and the Team enrolments will stay in sync.
- The course can be a place to gather the information that is otherwise repeated in module courses, on Faculty Hubs (programme specific), delivered via other arbitrary courses, or sent via email attachments.
- Some suggested content areas could include:
- Induction
- Careers/employability
- Staff Information
- Links to related societies and student reps
- Assessment information
- Sources of help and support
- Study skills
- Events
- Key dates
- A Programme course should be used to deliver teaching or assessment. Please contact ServiceLine if you feel you need to set up a non-Banner course for teaching purposes.
How are students enrolled on a Programme Course?
- Students are auto-enrolled onto Programme Courses via their Banner, programme codes.
- Course set-up and enrolments will suit your programme delivery and your definition of a “Programme”. In some areas, one course can be set up for all students in a department, or you could have separate courses for particular groups of programmes, year groups etc.
- The course name and ID will not contain a year – the course will not need to roll over each year. New students will be enrolled on the course via the enrolment feed from Banner & old enrolments will be dropped.
How will a Programme Course appear on the Blackboard Courses page?
- The course will appear under the term heading “Programme Information”.
- Course ID will start with PROG-.
- You can define the course name to suit the programme.
We already have an arbitrary course for programme information – can we set up an auto-enrolment & Courses page listing?
Many areas already have an arbitrary Blackboard course set up to deliver Programme information.
- Request a Programme Course using the app in the next section. You will then be able to roll the content of your existing arbitrary course into the new Programme Course. Open a ServiceLine ticket if you would like to speak to Blackboard/Education Application Support about this first.
How to request a new Programme Course
- Follow this link to our Blackboard Course Builder app.
- Select Create a programme course.
- Use the app to specify the Blackboard Programme Course title and ID.
- Select your faculty and school to display a list or programme codes associated with your school.
- Select the programme codes you would like to be included in the Blackboard course enrolments. Use the filter to sort by level and year group (part).
- Use the > arrow to move the selected codes to the Included column.
- Select Submit – this will send a ServiceLine ticket to iSoluitons. We will be in touch with you via the ticket to let you know when your course has been created.
See the programme codes that are linked to a Programme Course
- Follow this link to our Blackboard Course Builder app
- Find a course
- Select View my programme courses – to see the courses you have requested.
- Select View all programme courses to find a course from the list.
- Select View to see the list of programme codes associated with this course.
How to request changes to an existing Programme Course
- Open a ServiceLine ticket if you want to make changes to the course title or enrolment codes associated with a course.