Administration of Blackboard Papers
Summary
Information for Paper Co-ordinators:
- Types of Blackboard papers available
- How to set up a Blackboard paper
- How to ‘rollover’ a Blackboard paper
- Adding & Removing Staff
- Adding & Removing Students
Paper coordinator – the person who holds overall responsibility for managing a paper within Blackboard.
Rollover - copying the paper content into a new course ready for the next time you teach the paper.
Resources
- Online Blackboard paper registration form (external website)
Types of Blackboard papers
There are three types of Blackboard papers:
- Official Papers as listed in the University Calendar and Guide to Enrolment documents.
- Combination Papers – these are a combination of multiple papers or the same paper being taught at different campuses (i.e. Dunedin and Invercargill) or at multiple levels (i.e. 200 and 300 levels).
- Synthetic Papers – these are non-official papers used for special purposes, i.e. research, or for communication with specific groups. When requesting set up of a synthetic paper you need to provide a list of members i.e. the names of staff and students who form the group.
Setting up a Blackboard paper
You can set your paper up by registering the paper via Online Blackboard paper registration form
- Paper code (e.g. SPMX707)
- Year (e.g. 2011)
- Name of Paper
- Specify semester in which paper will be taught (or alternative arrangement if paper is non-standard)
- Class start and end dates
- Location where paper will be taught
- Your details as Paper Co-ordinator (i.e. name, department, email address, phone number, staff ID number, university username, date)
- Head of Department name and authorising signature
Allow up to five working days for your paper to be set up.
ITS Helpdesk can assist if you have any questions about this process. Email: helpdesk@otago.ac.nz, phone: +64 3 479 88888 or 0800 479 888
Rolling over an existing Blackboard paper
In order for your paper to be available next year (or the next time you wish to teach it) you need to request the paper is ‘rolled over’ which will ensure the course content will be copied into a new course.
To rollover your paper you need to:
- Open the Blackboard course you wish to rollover
- Go to the Control Panel
- Click Course Tools
- Choose Paper Administration
- Click Request Rollover
- Fill in the form
If you want the Announcements copied into the new course you need to request this as part of the rollover process.
Please note that we cannot roll the following information over:
- Discussions
- Blackboard Blogs
- Blackboard Wikis
- Journals
Allow up to five working days for your paper to be rolled over.
You will receive an email when your rollover has been completed. This is a good time to check and update staff details.
ITS Helpdesk can assist if you have any questions about this process. Email: helpdesk@otago.ac.nz, phone: +64 3 479 88888 or 0800 479 888
Adding/Removing Staff
As a Paper Coordinator, you have responsibility for managing staff access to your paper. To update staff access details:
- Open the Blackboard course you in which you want to change staff access
- Go to Control Panel
- Click Course Tools
- Choose Paper Administration
- Select Update Staff
Use the online form to add the usernames of the staff you wish to have access, and the access level required. You can also remove staff if required.
Adding/Removing Students
In the vast majority of cases, your student list will be automatically managed for you. If you have an “Official” or “Combination” paper – which is most papers in Blackboard – your class list will be fed into Blackboard from Student Records. As students enroll, they will be added. If they withdraw, they will be removed from that paper. If their access to resources (as defined by Student Administration) is denied, then they will not be able to log into Blackboard at all, and will not be able to get back in until they have resolved whatever issue is preventing their access (for example, by paying their fees).
If you have a “synthetic” paper, which is any paper not formally linked to any University teaching paper, you will need to provide ITS with a list of usernames to add to Blackboard, and we will enroll them for you. There are a couple of different cases:
- Predominantly staff papers – like a department staff site, or a committee, research project etc. You can use the online forms in Control Panel – Course Tools – Paper administration to add people to your site. You can give them a role of Instructor, TA, Course Builder, Grader, or Student.
- Large programme-based student papers – like a “Geography Majors” paper. We can’t use class lists in many cases like this, so you need to provide us with a list of student usernames to enroll. You can often find this information by running a Business Objects report, or using your own administrative information to create one. We will tell you when we set up your paper if you need to give us a list of student usernames.
