Announcements are one of the first things students see when they log onto Blackboard and enter your course. They are the best way to post information about upcoming tests, assignments, or other events.

• Announcements can also be emailed directly to students, students cannot reply directly to the email announcements. If you want your students to be able to reply back to your announcments try: Sending an Email from Blackboard.

1. Enter your course by clicking its name in the My Courses module.
2. Any announcements will appear in the My Announcements module on the course Home Page.

3. Click either the title of the announcement to read its full text or more announcements... to see all announcements.
4. The full text of your announcements will appear. Make sure Edit Mode is ON in the upper right corner of the screen. 

5. Click Create Announcement.

6. Under Announcement Information, enter a Subject (required) and Message (optional).
7. Scroll down to Web Announcement Options. By default, announcements display on the Home Page for one week, then they’re archived but still accessible by clicking more announcements. 

1.            How long do you want your announcement to display on the Home Page? 
2.            Duration: Select Permanent to display it indefinitely. Otherwise, leave it at Date Restricted.
3.            Select Date Restrictions: To display the announcement for more or less than 7 days, check the boxes for Display After and Display Until. Use the calendar and clock icons to select the desired dates and times, or type them manually into the boxes provided.

8. Proceed to the next section.
9. Want to e-mail your announcement to the class? Check the box for Email Announcement. This way, students will receive an e-mail notification even if they haven’t already signed up to receive them.  If you want your announcement to be available after a date in the future, you cannot also send an email. 
10. Does your announcement pertain to a document, assignment or test in another area of the course? If so, scroll down to Course Link.
11. Click Browse to open a popup listing all areas of your course.

12. Click the Expand All button in the upper left corner of the popup, or the plus button [+] to the left of any area to expand it.
13. Select the appropriate area of the course.
14. Click Submit at the bottom of the page.
15. The announcement will appear at the top of the page. Previous announcements are displayed in reverse chronological order.

Blackboard’s Assignment tool provides a way for students to securely submit work to Blackboard. Setup and use of Assignments is similar to SafeAssignments, but there are a few notable differences:

Assignments can be used for projects because it allows submissions of any file type. Assignments also allow options for multiple submissions of a project and for group submission and grading of a project.

Creating and Managing Blackboard Assignments

Grading Assignments with Inline Grading

 Uploading and Submitting a Blackboard Assignments for Students (PDF)

About Discussion Boards

Blackboard’s Discussion Board feature can be used to interact with your students, and for students to interact with each other. Use the Discussion Board to have students:

• Post answers to written assignments, so other students may review them and offer feedback.
• Post reactions to assigned readings, and discuss with the rest of the class.
• “Ask the Professor”. Students post questions to you instead of e-mailing you privately. This way, the answers benefit the whole class!

Discussion Board Vocabulary

1. Forums: A discussion board is comprised of one or more forums. Each forum pertains to a specific topic or assignment. If your class will have to complete three discussion board assignments this semester, you will need to create three separate forums.
2. Threads: Forums are comprised of one or more discussions, or threads. When a student wants to start a new discussion in a forum, they create a new thread. Other students can reply to the first to strike up a conversation, or post a new thread to start their own. Responses are grouped together (or “threaded”) to help keep track of the conversations.
3. Posts: Threads are comprised of one or more posts. Each response in a forum is considered a post, whether it starts a new thread or continues an existing one.

Setting up Discussion Boards in Blackboard (PDF)

To add your Echo360 videos to your course, you will need to follow these instructions:  

1. Start by entering into your course site within Blackboard.
2. Now go to the course content area of your choosing. In the image below, ours is called "Content", yours may be different, ex; Documents or Assignments.

3. Now, use the Build Content drop-down found under the title of the section you are in. 
4. From this menu, select  Echo Cloud from the left-side column.
   
5. This brings up the Create Echo Cloud page. 

What this does, is create a link to the recordings; so at a minimum, all you need to do is give it a name (Video Lectures, Videos, Captures...) and hit submit.  If you want to add more options, like to enable tracking, you can certainly also choose those features on this page before hitting submit.

6. After you hit submit you will see this new link with an echo360 logo next to it added to the content area. In this picture, it is the link that says "Videos".

7. Next click on the new link. Select the Course, Term, and Section that your videos are associated with...

... and keep the default choice, "Link to the Section Home".

8. Finally, Click "Link Content" and you are finished.

Blackboard syncs with PeopleSoft/SOLAR to add instructors, teaching assistants, and students to courses. If you are coteaching with another instructor, have a TA,  or a student auditor, they may not be automatically be added to Blackboard, if they are not registered or listed in SOLAR. In this case you will have to add them manually.

1. Enter your course by clicking its name in the My Courses module.
2. In the Control Panel, select Users and Groups, then Users.
   
3. Select Find Users to Enroll.
   
4. On the Add Enrollments page, type the student’s NetID into the box provided, then click Submit.

• Don’t know their NetID? Click Browse to open a search popup.
  
• In the popup, search by first or last name, or e-mail address.
• Check the box next to the student’s name, then click Submit to close the popup.

  5.  Select the appropriate course role.

• Instructor: Instructor
• Teaching Assistant: Graduate TA
• Course Builder: Undergraduate TA (Does not allow access to Grade Center, Undergrad TAs having access to Grades is a violation of Stony Brook's FERPA policy)
• Grader: Graduate TA who is only grading, not uploading content.
• Student: Student or Auditor, access only to content, no editing rights and will be listed in the Grade Center.
  

  6. Click Submit.

If you accidentally enroll someone into your course with an incorrect role, it’s easy to change it.

1. In the Control Panel, select Users and Groups, then Users.
2. Your course roster, including all students, instructors and TAs will be listed.
3. Click the down-pointing arrow button to the right of the username (NetID) of the person you wish to change, then select Change User’s Role in Course.
   
4. Select the appropriate role, then click Submit.

The following Building Blocks/LTI's are installed in Stony Brook's Blackboard system:

• Ally
• Cengage Learning MindLinks™ Building Block
• Echo360
• Inquizitive
• Lumen Learning
• Maple TA.
• McGraw-Hill Campus
• McGraw-Hill Connect and Create
• Pearson's MyLab & Mastering
• Piazza
• Respondus
• Turning Technologies
• Voice Thread
• Web Assign
• WileyPLUS Integration by Blackboard
• Zoom

Blackboard provides a batch copy tool to move multiple entire areas of your course at once. This is ideal if you plan to reuse the majority of your content from a previous course.

1. Enter your old course by clicking its name in the My Courses module.
2. In the Control Panel, select Packages and Utilities, then Course Copy.

3. Click Browse to the right of Destination Course ID (opens in a new window).

4. Select your new course from the list, then click Submit.
5. Check the boxes next to all areas you wish to copy. It’s usually easiest if you check most boxes (except Enrollments), then delete the content you don’t need from your new course later.

If you only want to copy some parts of your course, keep these tips handy.

• When copying Discussion Boards make sure to click on the forum in your new class and choose the correct option for you. If you have graded Discussion Boards make sure to also check the box next to Grade Center Columns and Settings.
• When copying Tests or Surveys, you must select:
  • The Content Area where they’re located
  • Grade Center Columns and Settings
  • Tests, Surveys, and Pools
• When copying Assignments, select:
  • The Content Area where they’re located
  • Grade Center Columns and Settings
• When copying SafeAssignments, select:
  • The Content Area where they’re located
  • Grade Center Columns and Settings
  • After the copy has completed, you’ll need to synchronize your new course. Contact us for help!
• Copy everything in one shot if possible. If you do several course copies with Grade Center Columns and Settings selected, you will end up with duplicate columns in your Grade Center!

6. Click Submit. The next page will say that you’ll get an email when the copy has completed.
7. Wait a few minutes (15 is usually sufficient), then check your new course.

DoIT can merge your sections together for you. This can help to save time and duplicate work across two parts of a class. Merging classes together merges the enrollments of the class into a single course section that all students and faculty have access to. For example this is can be done for crosslisted sections, where one course has two Blackboard courses created for two different departments. 

To have your course please fill out our form at the link below:

Blackboard Course Merge Request Form

When a course is created on Blackboard, the course is made available to students by default.  This gives the instructor the ability to upload documents, create assignments, set up their discussion boards and more. If you are not interested in using Blackboard at the start of every semester, instructors need to make their courses unavailable to students.

After logging into Blackboard, check the My Courses box.  If any of your courses say (unavailable) next to the course title, students will not see them when they log in.  To make a course unavailable, follow these directions:

1. Click on the name of your course in the My Courses module.
2. In the Control Panel on the lower left-hand side, select Customization, then Properties.

3. Scroll down to Set Availability.  Switch Make Course Available to No. 

4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Submit.

The Digital Learning Environment (DLE), e.g., Brightspace or Blackboard, is the preferred system for sending email to students since it does not display the email addresses.   In the event that the DLE  is not available AND you need to contact your students, you can download an Excel spreadsheet of your students that will contain a column of their Stony Brook email addresses.

1. Log into SOLAR with your EMPL ID# and your SOLAR password
2.  Select Faculty Center in the Instructor Self Service Section
   
3. Click the "people icon" next to the class that you want to email.
   
4.  Your course roster will appear (see below) ...    Select the download class roster button
   
5.   An excel  file  will download to your computer and should be available in your Download folder.    We recommend you rename your course, including term, i.e.:   Spring20_Ext288.xlsx so that you can find it later in a secure folder on your computer. 
6.   Open the file and  copy and paste the email addresses into  the Bcc field  (** eMail addresses are FERPA Protected **)  in your Google Mail (or Outlook)   
7.   If  you are using a shared computer, save to your Google Drive  and remove the file from your Downloads folder.   Make sure you empty the trash so that others cannot access the file.  

Organizing your Grade Center

Hide a column from student view

1. Select the arrow button to the right of the column title, then Edit Column Information.

2. Scroll down to Options.

3. Select No for both Show this Column to Students AND Show Statistics (average and median) for this column to Students in My Grades.

4. Click Submit.

5. In your Grade Center, a red icon will appear to the left of the column title. That icon means students cannot see these grades.

Hide a column from instructor view

1. Select the arrow button to the right of the column title, then Hide Column.

2. A Success confirmation will appear above the Grade Center

Hide multiple columns from instructor view

1. In the Action Bar, select Manage, then Column Organization.

2. Check the boxes to the left of the columns you wish to hide

3. Click Show/Hide at the top or bottom of the page, then Show Selected Columns.

4. Click Submit.

Restore hidden columns to instructor view

1. In the Action Bar, select Manage, then Column Organization.

2. Any hidden columns will be grayed out and say (Hidden). Check the box to the left of the column Name, click the Show/Hide button at the top or bottom of the page, then Show Selected Columns.

3. Click Submit at the top or bottom of the page.

4. If the column is also hidden from students, Edit Column Information, then change Show this Column to Students to Yes.

Freeze Columns

By default, the Last Name and First Name columns are anchored on the left side of the Grade Center.  Instructors may control which columns are frozen.

1. In the Action Bar, select Manage, then Column Organization. 2. A dark gray bar will appear, stating, "Everything above this bar is a frozen column. Drag this bar to change which columns are frozen." 3. To add frozen columns, select the four-pointed arrow icon to the left of the bar and drag down OR select the icon to the left of any row and drag above the bar. Anything above the bar will remain frozen. 4. Click Submit at the bottom of the page.

Rearrange Columns

When a new column is added to the Grade Center, it is automatically sent to the end.  Instructors can modify the order in which columns appear.

1. In the Action Bar, select Manage, then Column Organization.

2. Click and drag any row up or down to the desired location.

OR

Select the arrow button to the right of any column title and set to ascend or descend.

3. Click Submit at the bottom of the page to save your changes.

Create and Apply Categories

Categories are used to classify Grade Center columns. Filter the Grade Center based on category to see how students perform on specific assignments. Use categories to more easily weigh final grades. When creating columns, it is recommended to apply a category. If an appropriate category is not already listed, instructors may create their own.

The file size limit in Blackboard is 250 mb. 

Grade student work with Blackboard Annotate!

Check out our new tool called Bb Annotate! You can use Bb Annotate for inline grading. Bb Annotate offers a more robust feature set to provide customizable feedback to students. Features include a sidebar summary view, freehand drawing tools, various color selections, and much more.

For more information, visit: https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Assignments/Grade_Assignments/Bb_Annotate