Blackboard Tutorials: Building a course

The Blackboard course is a list of buttons (or text) on the left side of a Course website. It remains visible to students at all times when they are in the course website. The course menu can be changed to suit your style of teaching. The standard template gives you only a basic set of options (Announcements, Course Resources, Communications and Tools), but you are able to remove or add your own areas to personalise your course website and make it more accessible for your students.

It is a good idea to take some time in planning how best to set up your course. Drawing a site map on paper or developing a storyboard will help you to design the right menu areas and give them appropriate names.

Setting up your Blackboard course

To add a "Content Area" to the course menu:

1. Go to Control Panel > Manage Course Menu
2. Click the "Add Content Area" button
3. Give your area a name, or choose one from the drop-down list
4. Click Submit.

To add a "Tool Area" to the course menu:

1. Go to Control Panel > Manage Course Menu
2. Click the "Add Tool Area" button
3. Choose the Tool that you want to add from the drop-down list.
4. Type a name for the Tool in the box
5. Click Submit.

To change the label of an existing menu item:

1. Go to Control Panel > Manage Course Menu
2. Click on the "Modify" button beside the menu item you want to rename
3. Type a new name for the item in the box
4. Click Submit.

To change the order of the items in the course menu:

1. Go to Control Panel > Manage Course Menu
2. Choose a new number from the drop-down list beside the menu item that you want to move.

To hide a menu item from students:

1. Go to Control Panel > Manage Course Menu
2. Click on "Modify" beside the name of the item you want to hide/disable
3. Un-check the "Make Available to Student/Participant users" box
4. Click Submit.

click here   to find out how to change the design of your course (Menu & Banner)