Each semester course shells are created on the Blackboard server for every course being taught. Automatically, upon logging in to Blackboard, instructors will see links to any courses they are teaching.

The Control Panel

The template is not meant to constrain your choices - you can rename, remove and in other ways modify most of the elements which have anything to do with your course structure. Go to the Control Panel to make these changes.

Buttons - Manage Course Menu

Using the course menu you can select and name sections for primary course navigation.To access the Manage Course Menu go to: Control Panel:Course Options:Manage Course Menu

The course menu is also used to control access to various course sections - some sections you may want to open to guests, others you may close off to everyone except enrolled students. At a more global setting, you can close off the entire course to anyone who isn't enrolled - by default when we create the courses we set them to no guest access. You can change this setting by going to:
Control Panel:Course Options:Settings:Guest Access

Course Design

To add a banner or otherwise change the look of your site go to:
Control Panel:Settings:Course Design

Adding Content

Content can be added to most areas using either the Control Panel or the Edit View. Content comes in many forms, such as original content added to a text box or quizzes generated within Blackboard, Word documents, pdf files, image files(jpg,gif,png), audio files(mp3), web sites, links, flash modules(swf).

Files which are being uploaded should include file extensions (.doc,.pdf,.jpg, .ppt) to ensure they will be readable. Keep in mind that certain file formats are more portable than others - while anyone with a web browser is usually able to view jpg or pdf files, PowerPoint, Word and Excel are more application specific.

Set the Course to Available

To set the course to available, go to:
Control Panel:Course Options:Settings:Course Availability

If you see "(unavailable)" next to your course link, this means students cannot access the course.