Blackboard

Blackboard is a web-based course management system used by many faculty for their classes. With this system, faculty may post class schedules, handouts, assignments, announcements and other related course materials in one convenient location accessible from any computer on or off campus with an Internet connection. In addition, faculty and students may participate in a discussion board that is part of this system.

The full web address for the Georgetown College Blackboard system is http://blackboard.georgetowncollege.edu.

You may simply type blackboard in the location line of your browser to access
the Georgetown College Blackboard system from any computer on campus.
You must use the full web address to access the Georgetown College Blackboard system from off campus.
There is a link to the Georgetown College Blackboard system under Helpful Links on the main spider page.

You are required to login to actually enter the Georgetown College Blackboard system.

It is imperative that you LOGOUT when you are finished using Blackboard!

By logging out you will successfully terminate your connection to Blackboard. If you fail to do so and continue using your browser for other activities, anyone that has access to the computer you are using could reconnect to Blackboard as you by simply using the BACK button or HISTORY files, and then have access to your data. If you do not need to continue to use your browser for other activities, you may then close the browser window and exit the program without logging out.

The first screen you will see when you go to Blackboard via the web is shown on the right Click the login button
You will now see this screen Enter your GC user name and password Click the login button
You are now in the Georgetown College Blackboard system At the top of the screen, you will see this screen The HOME button will take you to the College's web site HELP accesses the Blackboard help system Click LOGOUT to close your Blackboard account and exit the Blackboard system
The My Institution tab is the normal Blackboard screen and is customized for you. The top of this screen should welcome you by name. The Courses tab is the course catalog, that is, all GC courses that have a presence in the Blackboard system
Since Blackboard is a web-based system, you can use the BACK and FORWARD buttons in your browser to navigate between screens. In addition, at the bottom of most screens in Blackboard you will OK and CANCEL buttons where appropriate. You can click these to complete or cancel an action and return to the previous page. In addition, as you navigate in the system, you will see the pathname identifying the page you are on between the MY INSTITUTION and COURSES tabs and the title of that page. You can also use the pathname (some of the words here will be links) to navigate within Blackboard.

The My Institution Screen

My Announcements

Announcements will be appear here.

For faculty, most if not all of the announcements posted here will be general announcements (that is not connected to a specific course), and posted by ITS staff.
For students, announcements will either be listed by course or will be general (not connected to a specific course). Any announcements posted by a faculty member to his/her course via blackboard will be listed here and viewable by students under the title for that course. Any announcements posted by ITS staff will be listed here as a general announcement. Students will note that course names here are hyperlinks. Thus, they can click on the link to go to the blackboard page for that course.

Click on MORE … to enter the Announcements section and read all general announcements posted in blackboard.

My Courses

There are two sections here for faculty:

Courses that you are teaching
- All courses that you are teaching will be listed here. The course names here are hyperlinks. Click on the link to go to the blackboard page for that course. If the word Unavailable is listed in parentheses after one or more of your course names, then you have not made that course available. Course must be made available in order for students to access them when they login to Blackboard.
- If a course that you are teaching is not listed here, that may indicate a problem with the system or it may not. It is possible that your was not created for Blackboard (an ITS endeavor). Contact William Rafaill if you have a question.
Course in which you are participating
- any course in which you are enrolled as a student will be listed here
- for example, Andrea Peach and William Rafaill use a class called Blackboard Training to teach the use of Blackboard; you should be enrolled in it!

My Calendar

You can use this calendar as a daily planner if you wish. Click on MORE … to view the calendar, create events, etc.

My Tasks

You can use this to manage your To-Do lists. Click on MORE … to view the list, create tasks, etc.

Tools

Some of the items listed here are repeats of what is listed elsewhere (My Announcements, My Courses, etc.). Clicking on them is the same as clicking on MORE … .

The other buttons give you access to other tools in the Blackboard system.

My Grades
- gives you access to the grades earned in classes you are enrolled in
  - of course, faculty members do not customarily take classes so this does not really apply to faculty!
  - however, FYI: Andrea Peach and William Rafaill use a class called Blackboard Training (“BBT”) to teach the use of Blackboard and all faculty are automatically enrolled in that class; consequently you will see something if you click on this button
Send Email
- this in intended to facilitate communication between students in the same class, between students and the professor of the class
- therefore the Blackboard email system is limited
  - you can send email from within Blackboard to any student in one of your classes
  - you can send email to the instructors of your classes if there are multiple instructors for the same class
  - you cannot send email from within Blackboard to students not in one of your classes
  - you cannot send email from within Blackboard to other faculty or staff
User Directory
- you can search by Last Name or Email address for any Blackboard user
- since all faculty and students automatically have Blackboard accounts, this directory will list all students and faculty by name and email address
- once the name is displayed, click on the mailto link to send email
- however, the directories that are part of PAWS are much more comprehensive (include phone, office or dorm, etc.)
Address Book
- you can use this as your personal Contact list
Personal Information
- this is you!
- add and/or modify whatever you wish
- note this is where you can change your password
- NOTE: Changing your personal information here only changes it for the Blackboard system!

It is imperative that you LOGOUT when you are finished using Blackboard!

Making Your Course Available

Does your course say it is unavailable? You need to make it available! When courses are loaded into the Blackboard system, there are “unavailable” to students. In other words, your students will not “see” your class in their list of courses unless you do the following:

Login to Blackboard
Select the course that needs to be made available from your list of courses and click on it.
Click on the Control Panel button (along the left towards the bottom of the list of buttons)
In the Control Panel, choose Course Settings (lower left under “Course Options”)
Click on Course Availability
Under “Set Course Availability” click the Yes radio button next to Make Course Available
Click the Submit button

Also, just to be on the safe side, you might want to go into the Course Settings/Enrollment Options and set the enrollment options to Instructor/Admin. This is not critical, but it might be nice.

More on Blackboard

A comprehensive tutorial for Blackboard is in progress. Once finished a link to it will be listed here.

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This page maintained by the T3 Center. Last change was October 04, 2002