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Blackboard Support

Overview

Blackboard is an online course management system that acts as an extension to the classroom, by providing an easy way to manage course materials and communicate with students.  In the past, professors have had to design their own web sites to provide anytime anywhere learning for their students.  With Blackboard, an instructor is provided with a standardized and organized web site that is easy to maintain without any knowledge of html.  In addition to being easy to use, the system provides numerous advanced features.  These features include discussion boards, virtual chat sessions with whiteboard functionality, email capability, a digital drop box for students to submit assignments, and the ability to create online assessments.

 

How to Request a Blackboard Course

You can start using the system as soon as you are assigned to a course by a department and you obtain a NETID.  Please note that if there are delays in obtaining your NETID, or in getting your NETID added to the system, you can request a generic account to use temporarily.

Although most courses are assigned professors based on these official lists, in some cases the list may be incomplete or may have invalid information.  If you need to request that a course be assigned to you, please fill out this form in its entirety.  This process generally takes 2-3 working days to complete and if for some reason you do not receive a response within 2 business days, please contact the RBSCS helpdesk at helpdesk@business.rutgers.edu.

 

How to Make a Course Available

Most of the RBS courses are assigned professors based on the course listings managed by RBS administrators, however these courses still need to be made available to students.  To do this, Select the course from your home page and use the control panel link at the bottom of the course menu on the left.  From the resulting screen select settings under Course Options (bottom far left) and then select course availability.  On this page change the availability setting to Yes and then select submit.

 

How to Get Started Adding Content

The following document can help you get started.  If you would like additional assistance, you can contact the RBSCS helpdesk at helpdesk@business.rutgers.edu.

 

What Do I Tell Students Who Cannot Access the System?

For a student to gain access to your course in the new system, they must be enrolled and they must have a NETID (pegasus or eden account).  Once an enrolled student obtains a NETID, they will be added to your roster within 2 business days.  Students should also check their email account in the new system and if it is not correct, they need to update their official student record.  If they do not have a valid email associated with their official student record, their email address will show up as noname@newark.rutgers.edu.

Students who do not have a NETID, can create one online using this link.

If a student cannot create a NETID using this form, they should contact their local RUCS helpdesk:

 Newark students:

NB Students:

Students should also check the email account associated with their official student record. Visit ess.rutgers.edu/services/web-services.html to learn more.
 

Multiple Section Courses (Combo Courses)

If you have requested a custom Blackboard course that includes multiple sections, then the roster for this custom course will need to be manually updated at specific intervals during the semester.  We recommend that you do not use these custom courses, but rather develop all of the materials in one section and then request our assistance in copying all of those materials to the other course section.  However if you are using such a course, please keep in mind that the rosters for these combination classes will not update automatically and you will not be able to submit grades through Blackboard.

 

Course Retention on Blackboard

Courses will be retained on the Blackboard system as follows:

  • Fall and Winter session courses will remain on the system until the end of the following Fall Semester (example: Fall 11 class purged at the end of Fall 12).
  • Spring and Summer session courses will remain on the system until the end of the next Spring Semester (example: Spring 12 purged at the end of Spring 11).

For more details on purging courses, please see this link.

If you are approaching the point where your course will be removed, you can archive the course for future reference.  You can find instructions on archiving your Blackboard 6 class here.

 

How to Post Final Grades Through Blackboard

Submitting Grades Through Blackboard:

  1. Login to blackboard.newark.rutgers.edu
  2. Select your class from the list on the right
  3. Go to the control panel for the class that you want to submit the grades for
  4. Select Gradebook Submission from the control panel (under course tools)
  5. Select Submit Grades and wait (this may take a few minutes to come up)
  6. When the roster finally comes up, use the drop down menu on the right hand side to assign a grade to each student.  Please use the grades at the top of the list as they repeat.
  7. After you have entered a grade for every student, you should print a copy of this page for your records and then use the submit button located on the bottom right hand portion of this screen.  You will then get a response that your grades have been submitted. You can only submit once.

For more information on submitting grades, please see this page.


How to Learn More About Blackboard

You can also create an account on the official Blackboard support site and utilize resources like their online training center to assist in learning about the system.  You can find this resource here.  Please note that you will need to create an account to use these resources.  Also, once you create an account, you do not need to enter a client ID to access these resources.

  • You can also find the instructor's manual for Blackboard here.

Available Tutorials:

Getting Started in BlackBoard

Collaboration Tools in Blackboard

Using BlackBoard for Assignments

Using the BlackBoard Gradebook

 

How to Determine Which Courses are Old Courses

You can determine which courses are old by using the courses tab in Blackboard.  The courses tab lists the official course ID for each class.  The prefix for each course ID starts with the year and the semester.  The semester codes are 0 for winter, 1 for spring, 7 for summer, and 9 for fall.

 

How to Hide your Old Courses

You can update your home page so that it only shows certain courses. From your home page, use this icon pencil in the My Courses workspace and then uncheck the, "Display Course Name" and "Display Announcements" check boxes for the courses you no longer want to see.  Please note that if you use the courses tab you will still be able to see all of the courses in which you are enrolled.

 

How to Rename your New Courses

If you are teaching the same course from last year and the title is the same it may be difficult to discern which class is which.  In order to address this you can go into your new course and add a Fall06 prefix to the course description.  To do this go into the new course and then go into the control panel for that course.  Next, under course options choose settings --> course name and description.  Here you can change the course name by adding the prefix and then use the submit button at the bottom of the page.

If you need assistance in getting started with the system, or have any questions or concerns, please contact the RBSCS Helpdesk at helpdesk@business.rutgers.edu.