For those familiar with the Blackboard 8 environment, getting oriented within the new Blackboard 9.1 interface may very well present the greatest challenges. See the following to get oriented within Blackboard 9.1 to the most basic aspects involved in developing a course shell.
| What it looks like in Blackboard 9.1 | What it looked like in Blackboard 8 | ||
| The default course navigation has been slimmed down in Bb 9.1. Faculty are encouraged to place all of their instructional materials into either the "About this Course" or "Coursework" content areas. "About this Course" should contain semester-long resources, like a copy of the syllabus, a link to the Contacts tool, textbook information, links to policies, and any other broad, overarching, semester long resources. "Coursework" should contain a series of folders (e.g. by week, chapter, module or project) into which all content items, assessments, and links to tools will be added. See the Adding Course Content section below. This approach to content presentation is expected to make building, managing and locating content easier for instructors as well as students. |  | While the default Bb 8 course navigation was serviceable, it often resulted in both faculty and students wondering where content belonged and, subsequently, the need for faculty to develop lengthy announcements detailing for students all of the links to click to complete all of the activities for the week. |  |
| Where it is in Blackboard 9.1 | Where it was in Blackboard 8 |
| All course related documents should be stored within the individual course folder for that course located within the Course Content folder, not in the My Content folder. The My Content folder in Bb 9.1 should be reserved for personal, non-course documents. Loading course materials into the appropriate Course Content folder will facilitate ITS being able to successfully copy courses from one semester to another. | Users were encouraged to use the My Content folder in their Content Collections to store all course related documents. There was no Course Content folder in the Bb 8 Content Collection. |
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| Where it is in Blackboard 9.1 | Where it was in Blackboard 8 |
| Edit Mode is on my default, but can be toggled off by clicking on the "On " button beside "Edit Mode is" located in the upper right corner of the screen. | Within a content area, users could enable editing by clicking on the Edit View link in the upper right corner of the screen. or toggle back by clicking on the Display View link. |
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| Where it is in Blackboard 9.1 | Where it was in Blackboard 8 |
| With Edit Mode on, mouse over the Build Content, Assessments, Tools, or Publisher Content to expand the options beneath it and select the type of content you wish to add. | Users selected the content type from the options displayed in the gray bar at the top of the screen. |
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| Where it is in Blackboard 9.1 | Where it was in Blackboard 8 | ||
| With Edit Mode on, mouse over the content item you wish to move, left click on the bar at the front of the item, and holding your mouse key down, drag and drop the item to its new location. |  | In Edit mode, uses expanded the drop down box beside the item to select the new order in which the item should appear. |  |
| Where it is in Blackboard 9.1 | Where it was in Blackboard 8 | ||
| Should you find that the default course menu does not meet your instructional needs, you can add additional navigational items. Use the + button on the far left, at the top of the course navigation to expand and then select the appropriate option. |  | Users went to the Control Panel > Manage Course Menu. |  |
| Where it is in Blackboard 9.1 | Where it was in Blackboard 8 | ||
| With Edit Mode on, mouse over the navigational item you wish to move, left click on the bar at the front of the item, and holding your mouse key down, drag and drop the item in its new location. |  | Users went to Control Panel > Manage Course Menu | |
| Where it is in Blackboard 9.1 | Where it was in Blackboard 8 | ||
| With Edit mode on, expand the "Customization" portion of the Control Panel options. Select "Teaching Styles." On the "Teaching Styles" screen, review the following sections: Select a "Course Structure" in section 2 only after careful consideration of the options. NOTE that applying a course structure will add new navigational items to the existing default course navigation, creating duplicates that you will have to remove. You cannot simply revert to the default navigation if you change your mind! Select a "Course Theme"in section 3 to change the page background and link colors. Select a "Menu Style,"in section 4, changing the background of the course and the color of the navigational links or choose to use buttons instead of text for your course navigation. Add a "Banner" to the course entry page in section 7. Note that the default entry page in Bb 9.1 is the "Planner" page. |  | Users went to Control Panel > Course Design |  |
| Where it is in Blackboard 9.1 | Where it was in Blackboard 8 | ||
| With Edit mode on, expand the "Customization" portion of the Control Panel options. Select Properties. In section 3 of the Properties screen, click on the "Yes" radio button beside "Make Course Available." |  | Users went to Control Panel > Settings > Course Availability |  |
