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Unlike Bb 8, the content collection in Bb 9.1 is separated into two areas: My Content and Course Content. The My Content folder can be used to store personal academic files including your vitae, conference presentations, professional writings, and research materials. The Course Content folder contains a sub-folder for each of your courses. All course related files should be uploaded to and linked from the appropriate Course Content sub-folder for the course, not from the My Content folder, in order to facilitate accurate copying of existing courses for future semesters. Note that this is a major change from the best practices advocated in Blackboard 8.
As soon as you open a Blackboard 9.1 course for the first time (from the My Blackboard or My Courses tab), a folder for that course is added to the "Course Content" folder in the content collection. Any files added to your course will be contained in this area. Having separate Course Content and My Content areas allows you to easily track and manage the files used for your Bb 9.1 courses within Course Content while, at the same time, keeping them separate from other files in your personal content collection in My Content.
When adding a file to a content area in a Bb 9.1 shell, clicking the "Browse My Computer" button will allow you to add a file directly from your computer. Now in Blackboard 9.1, that file will automatically be added to the appropriate course folder in the "Course Content" folder in the content collection. In Bb 8, when you added a content collection item to a course, you were automatically prompted to select a file from the My Content area. In Bb 9.1, however, when you click on the "Browse Content Collection" button, the Content Collection window will open to the "Course Content" folder for that course. This allows for a more controlled management of the files for that particular course and simplifies the process of copying those files into another course shell at a later date.
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You can create Course Content subfolders to organize your files within the Content Collection. Creating a logical filing system makes it easy to locate and link to files when adding content in your course. The subfolder structure in Course Content is separate from folders in a Content Area of a course and has no impact on the presentation of content.
Follow these instructions to create, edit and delete folders.
There are multiple ways to get files into your Content Collection Course Content folders:
Blackboard 9.1 also introduces Bb Drive, a desktop application that provides an easier, more intuitive way to access items in either the My Content or Course Content areas. With Bb Drive, users will have the same ability they have had using the Web Folder option in Blackboard 8 to map a drive on their computer to allow them to drag and drop files into either the My Content or Course Content folder. Bb Drive has this functionality but improves on it by providing the ability to edit those files directly on the server within the Content Collection instead of having to download files, edit them locally, and then upload the amended copies to Bb.
Versions of Bb Drive are available for both Windows and Mac operating systems. The documents below contain instructions on downloading, configuring, and using the application.
Consult the links below for additional information about Bb Drive:
Placing files in your Content Collection does not automatically add them to your course for your students to see. In order for students to see those files, you must link to them from within a content area in the course itself. Generally, those items will be added to either About this Course (e.g. a copy of the syllabus) or Coursework (e.g. lecture notes). The items will generally be added within a content area by selecting Build Content > Item or File. Once files are linked, they are viewable by all users enrolled in the course. You can delete the links to files in your course, yet the files themselves remain in Course Content, until you manually delete them.
Follow these instructions to link to files within the Course Content folder.
Follow these instructions to rename, move, copy, overwrite, download and search for files and folders.
