http://blackboard.hartford.edu

 

Blackboard is a Learning Management System.  It provides you with a ready-made online course that incorporates useful teaching tools such as folders, email, discussion boards…and even allows you to create quizzes and post grades.   In an emergency (pandemic flu, flood), instructors should plan to use Blackboard to continue teaching.

 

Table of Contents

How Do I Log In to Blackboard?. 2

Changing Your Blackboard Password. 2

Online Blackboard Help. 3

Blackboard uses email.  What’s my email address in Blackboard?. 3

Administration and Lifecycle of Blackboard Courses. 3

New Courses on Blackboard. 3

Enrollments. 3

Course Availability – Unavailable v. Available. 4

Sandbox Courses and ‘Practice’ Students. 4

Getting to Your Blackboard Course. 4

The Control Panel:  Your Menu for Building Blackboard Courses. 4

Communicating with Students:  Email & Messages. 5

Send Email 5

Messages. 5

Blackboard’s Course Menu – Accessing Tools and Content 6

Adding an Announcement 6

Adding Course Content to your Blackboard Course. 7

Add Item: Adding Course files. 7

Add External Link: Adding Websites. 8

Copying/Moving Course Content within Your Course. 8

Using Blackboard Forums for Class Discussions. 9

Setting up Forums: The Class Discussion Board. 9

Reading and Replying to Posts. 9

Adding and Retrieving Attachments. 10

The Online Gradebook. 10

Entering Grades into the Gradebook. 11

Reading the Gradebook Key. 11

Options for Setting up and Managing the Gradebook. 11

Add Item: Adding Gradebook Entries (Columns) to Your Gradebook. 12

Weighting Grades. 13

Running Weighted Totals. 13

Hardware and Software Specifications for Blackboard. 13

Windows Users Only – Downloading the Java Virtual Machine. 14

Enabling Cookies in Your Browser. 14

Supported Browsers-Operating Systems for Blackboard. 15

Getting Help with Technology at the University of Hartford. 16

Here are the steps for getting started using Blackboard.

  1. Get a University email account through Information Technology Services, CC 113.
  2. Contact FCLD for a Blackboard Orientation session fcld@hartford.edu or 768-4661.
  3. Login to Blackboard.  You should be able to see your courses listed. 
  4. Post a welcome announcement.
  5. Add and organize course materials (syllabus, articles, and website resources).
  6. Check course roster and make your course available to students.
  7. Pass out the Student Guide to your students on the first day of classes.
  8. As needed, download instructional guides to Blackboard from FCLD’s website http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/fcld/TechnologySupport/BlackboardLMS.htm

 

 

You must have a valid University of Hartford email account to log into Blackboard.  If you don’t have one, visit Information Technology Services in the Computer Center building, room 113.  You must present proof of affiliation with the university (i.e. contract of hire or University ID card). Within 24-48 hours after making your request for an email address, you will be able to access your Blackboard account.

 

To login, do as follows:  

  • Go to http://blackboard.hartford.edu  and click User Login.
  • In the login text box, type the first part of your University of Hartford email (jdoe if your email is jdoe@hartford.edu).
  • Your Blackboard password is set to the last four digits of your University ID. 
  • Click Login.  You will now see your Blackboard Homepage. 

To log out, use the Logout button at the top of the screen in the red margin.

 

Changing Your Blackboard Password

  1. From your Blackboard Home Page, find the Tools menu at the left.
  2. Select Personal Information.
  3. Select Change Password.
  4. Enter your new password twice.
  5. Click Submit to save your changes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note:  Forgot your Password?  Click on “Forgot Password?” on the login page and Blackboard will send a reminder to your University of Hartford email address. 

Instructions are available from any screen in Blackboard.  Select the Help icon at the top of the page next to the logout button.

 

Help is also available from the Control Panel under “Help”:

Manual – Written Instructions  (version 7.3)

Tutorial – Video Tutorials  (version 7.3)

Contact System Administrator - generates an e-mail to FCLD.  

 

Should University staff be unavailable to help, use an Internet search tool (e.g., Google) to search for answers to common Blackboard questions.  There are many how-tos and technical support documents on other University websites.

 

Call:   (860) 768-4661

M-F, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm

 

Email: fcld@hartford.edu

Your email address in Blackboard is set to your University of Hartford email.  Although you can send email from your Blackboard course, you need to read it using your regular email program (e.g., Webmail, Outlook Express, Eudora, etc.).  To access Webmail, go to http://webmail.hartford.edu and login using your email username and password. 

New Courses on Blackboard

Blackboard courses are set up automatically for all course sections (CRNs) and remain up for just over a year.  However, instructors must be listed on the Banner Computer System in order to gain access to courses in Blackboard.  Contact the Registrar’s Office (860) 768-4594 or your department for help with getting listed in Banner.

Ø      If you are teaching multiple sections of the same course and would like students from both sections enrolled in one Blackboard course, please fill out FCLD’s multiple-section course request form:  http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/fcld/MultiCReq.htm

Ø      Once you have built your course in Blackboard, you can reuse the course content each term by copying it forward.   Blackboard copying instructions may be found at http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/fcld/instructions.htm .  It’s a few clicks and a submit; you don’t have to start from scratch each term. However, if you encounter trouble, can’t find the course you need to copy, or have a very large course to copy, you may request that FCLD copy the course for you by filling out FCLD’s course copy request form at:  http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/fcld/CCReq.htm .

Enrollments

Students are automatically enrolled into a course as soon as the course is created and add/drops updated twice daily.  Faculty should avoid manually adding students into Blackboard.  However, if there is a prolonged University emergency, instructors may manually add students.  Since the course is set to ‘unavailable,’ students won’t see it until the course availability setting is changed.  

Course Availability – Unavailable v. Available

All courses will be created as ‘unavailable’ to students (hidden from students, but accessible to the instructor).  Instructors using Blackboard must change the course availability setting when they are ready for students to access the course.  To change the availablity within a course: 

 

From the Control Panel, go to Settings à Course Availability, select yes or no, and submit.

Sandbox Courses and ‘Practice’ Students

All Blackboard instructors have a “Sandbox” course, listed under “Courses you are teaching” on the Blackboard Home Page.  This course has no students enrolled in it, so it can be used to practice new features, test out files, etc.  Instructors are also provided with a second Blackboard user account that can be enrolled in Blackboard courses in order to see them the way students see  them.  To enroll this ‘practice student’ account into a course, go to “Enroll User” on the Control Panel.  Your test student’s logon ID is your own username prepended with an underscore (_jdoe if your username is jdoe) and the password is the last 4 digits of your University ID.