Blackboard - Faculty & Staff

Step 4: Setting Up "Coursework" Content Area

About "Coursework"

The "Coursework" navigational area in Blackboard 9.1 is envisioned to be the one-stop-shop for students to access all of the course materials and activities for the course from within a single link.  Instructors are encouraged to use Content Folders, Learning Modules, or Lesson Plans to organize their materials and activities in a meaningful way.  The labels attached to those Content Folders, Learning Modules or Lesson Plans will likely mirror the structure already laid out in the course syllabus (e.g.  "Week 1," "Module 1," "Chapters 1-2," "Lab 1," "Photosynthesis," etc.).  Students should be encouraged to check this link every day, knowing that everything they need to know for the week is located therein.  It is expected students will find it much easier to locate important information in one central location, and that instructors will no longer feel the need to create cumbersome announcements explaining where to locate materials as was often the case in the old Blackboard 8 course structure.

Coursework Structuring Options:

There are three general structuring options available for use within the Coursework content area:  Folders, Learning Modules, and Lesson Plans.  To use any of these three structures for organizing your course materials,

• From within, the "Coursework" content area, click on the Build Content button at the top of the screen and choose the structure your prefer from the drop down menu:
  • Content Folder.  Creating a folder provides the most basic way to organize course materials and activities.
  • Learning Module.  Learning modules include a table of contents showing all of the course materials and activities located within the Learning Module.  Learning Modules also provide an option to "Enforce Sequential Viewing of the Learning Module" contents.   Follow these instructions or watch this video to create a Learning Module.
  • Lesson Plan.  Lesson plans are similar to folders in terms of the way content is displayed within them.   The major distinctions between a folder and a Lesson Plan is that the Lesson Plan includes some additonal fields (e.g. objectives) and that the "description" of the Lesson Plan carries over into the Lesson Plan when it is opened, appearing at the top of each lesson plan screen.    Follow these instructions or watch this video to create a Lesson Plan.

• Give the item a "Name" and add any additional "Text" or "Description" for this item.  The naming structure should parallel the coursework structure outlined in the syllabus (e.g. "Week 1," "Module 1," "Chapters 1-2," "Lab 1," "Photosynthesis").  The "Text" or "Description" field could include items like the learning objectives as well as highlights of important due dates. 

• Click Submit.

Adding Content to the Folder, Learning Module or Lesson Plan

Course materials and activities are added to a Folder or Learning Module by simply clicking on the name of the Folder or Learning Module to open it, and then selecting the appropriate content type from the options at the top of the screen:  Build Content, Assessments, Tools, or Publisher Content.  When using the Lesson Plan, after completing the Content Information tab,  click on the Curriculum Resources tab to add the appropriate content type from the options at the top of the screen. 

• Build Content:  Choose this option to add documents, link to web sites, add YouTube videos, etc.
  • Add Items
  • Create multimedia Mashups
  • Insert web links
  • Video Everywhere - Create videos from the content editor and upload to YouTube. Watch the video.
  • Stream Video - For original videos or videos with copyright permission, see the Production Services Webpage to have your video uploaded to the streaming media server.
• Assessments:  Choose this option to add an electronic test or survey or an electronic assignment submission activity using a Turnitin Assignment or Blackboard Assignment.
• Tools:  Choose this option to link directly to any of the tools within Blackboard  (e.g. Discussion Board, Journals, Blogs Wikis, StudyMate Class)

Editing and Managing Coursework

Once you have added content, you have the ability to go back and edit the title, reorder, copy, move and delete. Follow these instructions to edit the content.

Controlling the Release of Content

Need to deploy an electronic test to a student who missed class?  Have materials that should be visible only to one group of students?  Want to restrict the time during which materials will be visible to students in the course.  Adaptive Release rules are used to control the release of course content.  Follow the instructions for Adding Adaptive Release Criteria.