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The Blackboard Hompage
The Bb Homepage is the opening page that appears after logging into Blackboard. A fixed set of links appear along the left-side menu and remain visible no matter where you are in a course. The default landing tab on the homepage is the Courses screen. From here, users can view all of their courses or view specific semesters by accessing the drop-down Current Courses menu at the top of the screen. Courses may be displayed in List or Grid view, searched by name, or filtered by role and status. For users with many course enrollments, the star icon allows for courses to be set as "favorites", which moves them to the top of the list for easy access.
See the Blackboard Homepage Overview Video to learn more.
Below is Central Michigan University's custom homepage left menu:
note - other images may contain Blackboard's default UBN menu
To learn more about each menu button, click the item below:
Institution Module
User Profile
Activity Stream
Courses
Workshops & Orientation
Calendar
Messages
Grades
Assist
Tools
The Institution module communicates information related to Blackboard performance, pending maintenance, and/or planned outages. In addition, links for requesting technical assistance from the CMU Helpdesk, access to one's CMU email and CentralLink, along with faculty support services from CoursePro, are provided. The information and links on the Institution tab are not editable by instructors or students.
Basic Information
The Profile page contains personal information and settings. The Email, Student ID, and Password fields are pre-populated and may not be changed. First names only may be changed by hovering the mouse over the Full Name box and then clicking on the pencil icon that appears to edit at the next screen. Additional identifying information such as other name/nickname or preferred pronouns may be added if desired by again hovering the mouse over the desired box, then clicking on the pencil icon that appears to edit at the next screen.
Profile Image
By clicking the pencil icon next to the generic profile image at the top of the page, users can upload a new profile picture (.gif, .png or .jpeg formats) which appears on the course roster and in discussions, blogs, journals, wikis, and group activity pages. Images must be less than 5MB and at least 50 x 50 pixels in dimension.
System Settings/Language
At the system level, English is the default language used in Blackboard. At the course level, instructors have the ability to set a different language pack that everyone in the course sees. In addition, by clicking the pencil icon within the Language section, each user may choose to set their preferred language.
System Settings/Privacy Settings
By default, only Instructors and Blackboard administrators may view profile information, but by clicking the pencil icon to edit the Privacy Settings option, users may grant access to their profile to anyone in their course.
System Settings/Global Notification Settings
This area allows you to view/modify the notifications you will receive about activity in all your courses, whether as a student or instructor. Notifications can be delivered through the Activity Stream (Global Icon), Email (Envelope Icon), or as Push Notifications (Bell Icon), which appear in the Blackboard app when using a mobile device. The types of activities listed will vary depending upon your role in the course. Some activity types cannot be changed and will always generate a notification.
For a complete list of the types of notifications and which ones are editable, visit the appropriate Blackboard Help article below:
Notifications for Instructors
Notifications for Students
Here, users can see what's due and what needs their attention in their courses. Items are sorted into Important, Upcoming, Today, and Recent categories. Users can jump directly into course activities from the list. Announcements and anything with a due date appear in the Activity stream.
Instructor Activity Stream View
- Follow student discussions as they happen, including the latest submissions. Posts made to discussion forums that aren't graded are not visible.
- Take note of how many submissions are ready to grade. You can also access new submissions from the stream.
- Receive reminders about personal events and meetings.
- Enjoy a bird's eye view of course activity and direct access to course items.
- Filter your view. Use the Filter menu and choose Show All, Assignments and Tests or Grades and Feedback.
Student Activity Stream View
- Receive course announcements from the instructor, reminders, view pending deadlines or overdue assignments, tests, and graded discussions.
- Check your grades. Whenever your instructor grades an assignment, test, or graded discussion, you can access the grade in your stream. If your instructor updates a grade, the grade is also updated in the stream.
- Learn to juggle. Get a bird's eye view of your tasks across all your courses then, prioritize!
All Users Can Filter Their View! Use the Filter menu and choose Show All, Assignments and Tests, or Grades and Feedback.
Activity stream categories
Activity stream items are grouped into four categories to make the list easier to scan:
Important: See overdue assignments, tests, and graded discussions. The number of items in this section makes up the count shown by Activity Stream in the list where your name appears. If you dismiss an item in this section, you won't be able to view it again even if you sign out and sign in again. When you dismiss a stream item, the original content isn't affected. You just remove the notification from the activity stream.
Upcoming: View your top five events that will happen in the next seven days. Select Show More for a complete list. This section doesn't appear if no upcoming events are available.
Today: See everything happening and due in the next 24 hours, including institution-wide announcements about emergency notifications and updates. If your instructors added announcements, they appear here or in the Recent section.
Recent: If you haven't checked in for a bit, view stream items that were previously in the Today section over the last seven days.
Customize your stream
Users can choose to show or hide some types of activity from within the Notification Settings area which is accessed by clicking the gear icon in the upper right corner. These are the same Notification Settings available from within the User Profile tab.
- Activity stream (globe icon): Choose which activities appear on your Stream page.
- Email (envelope icon): If you want to receive email notifications, add an email address to your profile page. Then, choose how often and which activities you want to receive notifications for.
- Push notifications (bell icon): Messages pop up on your mobile device if you have the Blackboard app for students installed. NOTE: Blackboard is not configured for SMS text messages. Push notifications are only sent to a mobile device through the downloaded Blackboard app and not via a text message.
In this tab, a view of all the courses a user is enrolled in is provided. Courses are grouped based on their duration and associated semester. Browse by semester by changing the filter to move to past, current, and upcoming courses.
A Special Note About Course Listings: Courses will not appear under the categories of “Upcoming” or “Completed”. This is not a bug of the system, but rather because CMU utilizes a “Continuous” course duration setting, rather than a “Term Duration” setting — all courses are recognized as being in a current status by Blackboard.
The Filter option provides several pre-set filters to narrow down your listing of courses. The Search box allows you to find a specific course within your list by typing in the course designator or a few letters from the course name.
The items per page is also customizable from this same location.
Courses Not Associated with a Semester (e.g. Sandbox Shells, Special Purpose Shells, or Ready-To-Teach Master Shells): A course not associated with a semester or that uses custom start and end dates and is currently active, will appear in the 'Assorted Dates' group on the Current Courses page. Non-term courses appear on the Past Courses page when they end or on the Upcoming Courses page if they start in the future.
Can't Find a Course? If you cannot locate a course you know you are the instructor of, try these steps to locate the course:
- In the All Courses filter at the top of the Courses tab, select Hidden from Me (if this item does not appear as a choice in the drop-down menu, you do not have any courses hidden from your view. Proceed on to the next items to try and find your course). If the course is found hidden from your view, click the 3-dots on the course card and Show Course.
- At the top of the Courses tab, type in the course designator in the Search Your Courses box on the left.
- On the right side, change the 25 per page to 100 per page to display more courses on the screen to you. Sometimes course listings go beyond the standard 25 courses on page to additional pages.
- At the bottom of the Courses tab, scroll through pages to view courses on additional pages.
List vs Grid View of Courses
Users can view the Courses page as a list 
or a grid
. Course listings can be displayed in either view by selecting the respective icon. Information listed for the course includes course ID, course title, and instructor. If a course has multiple instructors, then 'Multiple Instructors' is listed as a link, which, when clicked, then displays the names of the instructors associated with the course. Select 'More Info' to see the description and schedule, if added.
Courses displayed in Grid format are shown as a course card with an image displayed for the course. This image is either a stock image provided by Blackboard or, if a banner exists inside the course, that banner then becomes the image for the course.
Instructor Course Setting Options
The 3 ellipses (dots) located on the course listing provides a menu that gives additional options to the instructor.
Ellipses Menu - List View
Ellipses Menu - Grid View
After clicking on the three dot menu you may see the window below. Please note the indicated difference between the Make Course Private and Complete Course selections.
From this menu, Instructors can set their courses to these states:
- Open Course: You can open a course when you're ready for students to participate.
- Make Course Private: You can make an open course private while content is added or finalized, and then open it to students when you're ready. Students see private courses in their course lists, but cannot access them. A course cannot be made private during an active term.
- Hide Course: You can choose to hide a course from your course list to organize your view. Activity for hidden courses no longer appears in the global pages about all your courses, such as Grades. Only instructors have the option to hide courses. To show a hidden course, go to the Filter drop-down menu and select from the list by Hidden from me > open a course's menu > select Show course.
- Show Course: A course hidden from view can then be changed to show course and have it appear in the user's listing of courses.
Courses that have not yet been made available by the instructor are marked as Private. A Padlock-Private icon indicates students will not be able to access the shell when set as Private.
Click the star button to mark it as a favorite so it will be listed at the top of your course listing, for easy access.
The global calendar displays events and dates from multiple courses in one location. The course calendar displays due dates, the course schedule, office hours, and course-specific meetings and events. When instructors create content with a due date, it automatically shows in the calendar. Calendars can be viewed in either Schedule mode or as a listing of Due Dates only (upper left corner) or by Day or Month (upper right corner). When enrolled in multiple courses, users can see that courses are color-coded for easy identification.
Schedule View
Due Date View
Adding Events
Events can be added to a calendar by clicking the + icon in the upper right corner. Events added by a student appear on a user's personal calendar only. Instructors have the ability to add Events to a variety of calendars (personal calendar; calendars of courses they are the instructor of). The user is the only one who can view personal events. Any calendar entries added to your courses will be collated here.
Calendar Settings
By clicking the gear icon in the upper right corner, users can select which calendars they want to display. By default, all calendars from courses a user is enrolled in are displayed.
By clicking the 3 ellipses to the right of "Calendar Settings", the user can then opt to add a calendar or share a calendar:
Users can view messages for all their courses on one page or for one course at a time. Messages are organized by course. Messages can be used for reminders, quick questions, and social interactions. Instructors can send messages to individual students or an entire class--for students, the messages are read-only and they may not reply or create new messages. Message activity remains inside Blackboard -- in order words, messages are not sent to user's CMU email accounts and are only viewable/accessible inside Blackboard.
The default view of messages is for Current Courses but messages can be viewed by semester by clicking the left or right arrow as shown below.
To Compose a New Message
To create and send a message, click on the desired course card or the + button:
At the next screen, click Create Message:
Then select To and a list of all course members appears for you to select which users you want to receive your message:
In the first box, select the desired recipient(s) and then click the right-pointing arrow to move them to the Recipients box.
Compose your message and click Submit.
When a user has a new message, a number displays on the Message tab to indicate the arrival of a new message. Note: A notification of a new message does not appear in the user's Activity Stream.
Users can determine which course they have a new message for by the indicator that appears beneath the course title.
Clicking on the unread message links takes users to their Inbox, which when clicked, displays messages in the user's Inbox:
By clicking on the message title under Subject, the message opens up for viewing to the user.
Users have access to all of their courses' grading tasks on the global Grades page. Information displayed here will differ on whether the user is enrolled in a course as an instructor or as a student.
Instructor View
Instructors see a summary for each course along with how many items need to be graded and the average course grade. Instructors can begin grading from this page as well as complete grading tasks inside the course from the Grade Center interface.
Clicking on the View All Work link (shown in the lower right corner in the above image), provides a list of all assignments within the course.
Student View
Students see a list of recent grades and their overall grades for each course. Students also see newly posted grades in their activity stream.
The Assist tab provides a list of student-facing services and resources available at CMU centering on student academic success, health and well-being, and financial services. These resources can also be added within one's course shell as a menu button item. For more information, see the Blackboard Assist module.
The tools tab provides native Blackboard Tools which can be accessed from the base navigation menu. Some tools that are available include:
- Enterprise Surveys - Enterprise Surveys is a system tool. Surveys can be sent to any selection of courses, departments, or the entire institution. Surveys can also be sent to email addresses outside the system.
- Rubrics - Rubrics can help ensure consistent and impartial grading and help students focus on your expectations.
- Adobe Creative Cloud - A one stop shop for everything Adobe available free to CMU students faculty and staff.
- EvalutionKit - EvalKit is a course evaluation and general survey tool for on-line survey delivery.
