Blackboard is based around taught units, with a single Blackboard course being created for every taught unit that is running in the current year. Occasionally, staff may require a Blackboard course that has students from more than one taught unit on it (in addition to the normal courses). If you had a course like this – called a “hub” course – in the previous academic year (2015-16), and you will need it again this year, please fill in a hub course roll over request form. If you have a definite need for a new course like this, please fill in a new hub course creation request form.

Setup

Once the form is completed, your new hub course will be created in 3-5 working days. You will be sent an email when it is ready.

Students: Those who are registered for any of the units identified on the form will be automatically enrolled into the hub course. Students that register for those units later will also be enrolled onto the hub course, 3-5 working days after their registration in SITS.

Staff: As the hub course requester, you are automatically added to the hub course as an Instructor, along with any other staff that you list on the form.

Content

The hub course will be a copy of the “main” unit course in the list you submitted via the form (unless you specify otherwise). In future years, the hub course will be a copy of the previous year’s hub course.

Single-unit courses

Your normal single-unit courses will still be on Blackboard, and you may make them available to your students in addition to your hub course. There are a number of University tools that only work (or work best) in the single-unit courses, which include:

• eReserves
• Mediasite
• Library reading lists
• Online submission of essays (particularly when this is part of a school-wide process)

Tidying up your single-unit courses

If you make the single-unit courses available, and if they contain content, then you need to hide that from your students to avoid confusing them with duplicate materials. The easiest way is to hide whole menu items is:

• Move your mouse over the menu item and click on the drop-down arrow
• Click “Hide link”

It is also good practice to add an announcement to the single-unit courses, telling students that the materials are held in the hub course and letting them know what you will be using the single-unit courses for (eg accessing eReserves).

Switching on the courses

Finally, you will want to make the courses available for your students. Use Qwickly to do this.