/
Beginning and End of Semester Course Information for Faculty

Beginning and End of Semester Course Information for Faculty

 

Beginning of Semester Course Information for Faculty

Blackboard Course Creation

A Blackboard Ultra course has been created for every class as organized in the Student Information System (SIS) and the primary instructor listed in the SIS has been automatically enrolled as Instructor. 

Action required:

  • Review: It is important that you review the official Schedule of Classes and your Blackboard courses as soon as possible.

  • Consult: If your courses are not organized correctly (e.g., graduate/undergraduate, cross-listed), consult your department scheduler before you start building or designing your Blackboard course.

  • Enroll: Do you have a co-instructor(s) or teaching assistant(s) that will need access to your Blackboard course? If so, please see the "Instructor Enrollment" section below.
     

Favorites

When a new semester's courses are created, they will appear at the top of your Blackboard Courses list. If you would like your current, active semester courses to appear at the top of the list, you can select the star icon to add it to your Favorites. No more scrolling! You can deselect the star icon to remove a course from your Favorites.

Blackboard User Accounts

Blackboard user accounts are automatically created for all current (and future) registered students and current (and future) employees. For detailed information, please visit: https://uniservicehub.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SH/pages/581730328/Blackboard+User+Accounts#Account-Provisioning .

Instructor Enrollment

Only the primary instructor listed in the SIS has been automatically enrolled in those Blackboard courses. If there are additional co-instructors that need access to your course(s), the primary instructor has the ability to enroll these users. Information and instructions are located in the faculty FAQ: https://uniservicehub.atlassian.net/wiki/x/7J9gD

Student Enrollment

The initial population of regular Blackboard courses with registered students is 2 weeks before the start of the regular semester. If a class has an official start date before the start of the regular semester (like a Winter term class), that Blackboard course will be populated with students 1 week prior to that official start date listed in the SIS. 

Enrollment changes (adds/drops) will be processed multiple times per weekday for the remainder of the semester and even continues for about 2 months after the semester has concluded.

Syllabus Statements

In Blackboard Ultra courses, you will need to add the syllabus statements to your syllabus. Here’s a link to the address for your convenience. https://provost.uni.edu/syllabus-statements 

Panther Resources

In the Blackboard Original courses, external links such as Syllabus Statements, Student Support, Accessibility, Academic Support Student Services, and Rod Library were automatically added to the Course Menu. Since Ultra does not have a Course Menu, we have provided a zip file to upload into your Blackboard Ultra course to automatically create a Learning Module called "Panther Resources" within Course Content that will contain the links. For more information please visit, Adding Panther Resources to an Ultra course. 

Make your Course Available to Students

Each semester you must make your Blackboard course available to your students. For step by step instructions, visit Make your Course Available to Students.

Blackboard Course Quota

Blackboard courses also have the 1 GB course quota (or size limit) that was implemented in April 2021. For more information, please visit Blackboard Course Quota. As a way to help reduce the uploading of large files, UNI has implemented limits on individual file uploads. For more information, please visit Blackboard File Size Upload Limits.

Course Copy

Ultra Course to an Ultra Course

Ultra to Ultra Course Copy

When copying an Ultra Course to another Ultra course, we highly recommend doing a FULL course copy all settings are preserved (including due dates, visibility states, and release conditions) that you can EASILY edit once the course copy is complete. 

Original Course to an Ultra Course

DO NOT perform A FULL COURSE COPY from an ORIGINAL course to an ULTRA course!

Our recommendation is to develop your course from scratch. If you want to use certain assessments from your Original course, you first must create the structure (we suggest that you use Learning Modules) and then use Blackboard Ultra's "granular course copy" to bring over your course content in pieces, as you organize your new Blackboard Ultra course. Here are resources to assist you as you go through the transition:

Publisher Integrations

If you haven’t submitted your textbook/publisher integration information to the UNI bookstore and worked with your publisher to ensure that your integration is working correctly, please do so ASAP! You can contact the UNI Bookstore by emailing 2339txt@follett.com. To see a current list of integrations that work with Blackboard Ultra, see our site on publisher integrations.

End of Semester Course Information for Faculty

Make your Course ‘Unavailable’ to Students 

In Ultra, instructors have the ability to either Close a course or Complete a course:  

  • Closed: Course remains listed but content is inaccessible.

  • Mark Course Complete: Students can view content but cannot participate.

Consider keeping your course(s) available for a few weeks post-semester so students can access their grades and related materials. Before restricting access, notify your students. For guidance and step by step instructions, see the Make your Course ‘Unavailable’ to Students page.

Important: Once your course is finished, avoid making further edits to the course content and design.

Instructional Design/Gradebook Help: 

If you used the Blackboard Gradebook and would like assistance with verifying the setup and accuracy of your Gradebook(s) before submitting final grades, one-on-one help is available!

Moving Grades to the SIS

At this time, you must manually move the final grade letter of your course to the SIS. For more information visit the

Office of the Registrar's page on submitting your grades.

Questions or Issues with the UNI eLearning Suite of tools: If you (or your students) have any questions or issues with these tools, please submit the 'Contact eLearning Suite Support' form.

Student Access to Course Materials After the Semester Has Ended

If you do NOT “Close” (make ‘Unavailable’) your course to students, students will have access to your course materials UNTIL they are no longer taking courses at the University of Northern Iowa. For detailed information, please visit: https://uniservicehub.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SH/pages/581730328/Blackboard+User+Accounts#Account-Deprovisioning .