Faculty: Winter, PT Winter and Spring 2010 Course Activation for Blackboard Now Available

11/17/09

Attention Faculty members: if you are teaching winter, winter PT and/or spring courses and plan to use the Blackboard online courseware system, you can now create the Blackboard course shells through HomerConnect!

Course Activation

To create a course "shell" in Blackboard, do the following:

• Go to HomerConnect and login using your HomerConnect ID and password
• Choose Faculty/Advisors and click the "Blackboard Application" link at the bottom of the page
• You will be directed to a page that lists terms and shows "Not Activated" and "Activate as...". Activation refers to whether or not a course shell has been created in Blackboard. Only activate those courses which will use the Blackboard system
• Choose the term you are interested in. The page will refresh showing all of the courses you are teaching. Courses that have not been activated in Blackboard will show up under the "Not Activated" heading.
• Instructors have the option of activating sections as either "Stand Alone" sections or as "Group A" or "Group B". "Stand Alone" sections are managed individually in Blackboard by the instructor. The "Group A" or "Group B" option can be used to group individual sections of the same course taught by the instructor together.
• Click on the button next to the section to activate the course in Blackboard and create the course shell
• The page will refresh and the section will move to the "Activate as" section
• Click the "Update" button at the bottom of the page
• Logout when you have finished activating sections

Courses are created in Blackboard at 8 am and 3 pm daily. To see the section in Blackboard, go to courses.ithaca.edu

• Click on the Blackboard logo and login using your email username and password
• The activated sections will appear on the class list section of Blackboard
• Click on the appropriate course section to begin creating or importing content.

Grouping Sections in Blackboard

Instructors who use Blackboard and teach courses with multiple sections can group these sections ("child" sections) together so that content is managed in one "parent" section. After grouping, instructors will see only the parent section; child sections will be inaccessible. Faculty will be able to build content in the "parent" section as soon as the "parent" course is activated.

The Blackboard Section-Grouping Quick Guide provides the most in-depth information regarding this topic. Starting with the winter term, faculty members who choose the group sections together will see their email username in the title of the parent section.

Copying Content

To copy content from one section to another:

• Activate your section(s) through HomerConnect
• Log into Blackboard via courses.ithaca.edu.
• Click on a blank section.
• You have 3 options the first time you login to it: create a blank course, copy from an existing section, and copy from file.
• Select Copy content from another course.
• Click Continue.
• The courses you are enrolled as Designer are displayed. Select the course you want to copy its content from. Then select Continue.
• The course is now updated with content. Repeat this process for any other courses.

Please contact the Helpdesk if you have any questions.

ITS Helpdesk
helpdesk@ithaca.edu
607-274-3282

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