To help staff prepare their Blackboard sites for the start of the semester, we have created a nine-step checklist, with step-by-step instructions on how to do the essentials to get your site ready for your students. Some of the items in it are optional and depend on the way you are using Blackboard in your module, so don’t worry if you find something which you are unfamiliar with.
Don’t forget that for this year we are starting with a new 2010/11 template with some additional tools added into them. You will need to add new content and copy existing content from your old sites as part of the preparation process. See our video on copying content for more information on how to do this.
Is it still planned for students now to be able to see their previous years’ Bb sites?
If so then how long will each year’s sites be available?
Staff should be reminded to undo date restrictions on content visibility if this is to work (and I do think that it is a good idea).
David
Yes, from September students will keep access to Blackboard module sites they have completed. Essentially the sites will be available on the system as long as a student who was enrolled on that module cohort is still taking the course. After all of that cohort of students have finished the course, then the site will be archived for 12 months as before. This will start with module sites which are available on the system currently – it won’t be retrospectively applied to archived sites.
We’ll send out more information about this again to staff members soon, and be sure to remind them to leave content available so students can access it. Thanks!
If the old Bb sites are to be kept until all students have completed, as staff we will end up with a number of versions of the same module site. Are these going to be grouped in some way so that we can choose to see just our current sites
There will be a new Blackboard Sites channel introduced shortly to help staff and students manage the increased number of sites. It will have two tabs, one called Current Sites where you see the sites for that academic year (the tab that loads first). The other tab will be called All Sites and will have a list of all of your sites, with modules arranged by year. In September we will automatically move the past year’s sites out of the Current Sites tab, though staff and students can also personalise which sites show up in there.
You may want to look at this blog post which previews the new Blackboard Sites channel.