Blackboard for Faculty and Organization Leaders
Blackboard is Fairfield University's Learning Management System (LMS). The following resources have been curated for faculty due to popular demand.
Fairfield University is transitioning to Blackboard Ultra Course View. The following documentation is for Original Course View. If you are teaching in Ultra or wish to learn more about the transition, please see Blackboard Ultra Course View for Faculty and Organization Leaders
Blackboard Assessments
Blackboard Communication Tools
Building Content in Blackboard Original Course View
Export, Import, or Copy Blackboard Courses
Frequently Asked Questions
Why don't I see my courses in Blackboard?
Courses and enrollments populate in Blackboard 2 times a day. If the course is not displaying, it is most likely because you were not listed as the instructor during the last update. If you were just recently assigned the course via CourseLeaf and see them listed on your Faculty Self Service, please wait at least 12 hours for the next update to process. If you do not see the courses listed on your Faculty Self Service, we recommend you contact your program coordinator to ensure your courses have been properly assigned through CourseLeaf.
How do I make my course available?
By default, your Blackboard courses are hidden to students. Even if you have prepared a course's content and consider it ready for student viewing, they will not be able to see it until you manually make it 'available' to them.
Log in to Blackboard
Navigate to Courses and find the course you want to make available
From the courses page: Select More Options (...) to expand the options for that particular course, then select Open Course
From within the course (original course view): Select the lock icon in the top right corner to make the course available
From within the course (ultra course view): Under Details and Actions, select Students can't access this course, then in the dialogue box select Open to Students
How does Blackboard support accessibility?
In addition to text exceptions and being built with accessibility in mind, we have licensed Blackboard Ally which works seamlessly with Blackboard to gauge the accessibility of your content. Ally provides guidance and tips for lasting improvements to your content accessibility.
Receive feedback on the accessibility of your content
Improve content accessibility with Ally's step-by-step instructions
In addition to providing you with insight to your content accessibility, Ally automatically creates alternative versions of your files. This allows students to choose the type of file they want that best suits their needs. While you're in the process of improving files, students still access alternative copies.
Blackboard Ally Resources
Want to learn more?
For questions about accessibility, contact ooa@fairfield.edu.
How do I find my class roster in Blackboard?
All Blackboard courses have a complete set of enrolled-student names, emails, and photos available for the instructor to see and print. To view your class roster and photo roster, see the instructions below.
Viewing Your Course Roster
- Open your course and navigate to the Control Panel located in the lower left
- Select Users and Groups
- Select Users
Downloading a Course Roster from Blackboard
- Open your course and navigate to the Control Panel located in the lower left.
- Select Grade Center
- Select Full Grade Center
- Once in the Full Grade Center, you’ll see a button on the right labeled Work Offline. Hover over this with your mouse and select Download
- On the Download screen:
- Under Data, select User Information Only
- Under Options > Delimiter Type, select Comma.
- Click Submit and you’ll be prompted to complete the download
Depending on your computer operating system and web browser, your file will either be saved or it will automatically open in Microsoft Excel.
If you have linked classes - two sections or listings that function as one - your spreadsheet will have an additional column noting which students are in the child or linked section.
- Open your course and navigate to the Control Panel located in the lower left.
- Select Course Tools
- Select Class Photo Roster and you will be taken to a page that displays a row-by-row view of the enrolled students in your class.
- Once your roster displays, you also have the ability to view it in a printable mode by clicking either Print Version or Print in Rows above the photos on the right.
I want to record my classes on Zoom. How do I obtain my student's consent?
According to Connecticut state law, anyone being video recorded in a non-public space has the right to consent to the recording, or to refuse to be recorded. To comply with this law in an educational setting, any faculty member who wishes to make an audio or video recording of their class is required to obtain a consent form from all students. While individualized consent for each session is always preferred, under our current, COVID-19 circumstances, one consent form for entire semester is sufficient. If an instructor chooses to obtain a single form that covers the entire semester, the form must specify that the consent obtained applies to the full range of meeting dates. The instructions and template below, filled in with the complete date range and confirmed by students, will fulfill the State of Connecticut requirements according to University counsel.
Please note: If one or more students do NOT give consent to being recorded, the University’s legal counsel has stated the following:
The safest course is to not allow the recording at all, as some of the states that students are participating from might require two party consent for both video and audio recording (i.e. student might need to consent to the audio recording of his/her voice).
That being said, practically speaking, if there’s a demonstrable need for the faculty to record, I think it’s generally probably reasonably ok to allow the recording to move forward so long as those students’ (who did not consent) cameras are off. Moreover, faculty should refrain from using identifying information about the students who did not consent (i.e. only use first name, not last name or other identifier). As Zoom usually has the name or picture of someone not using video, we should make sure this is not captured.
Open your course in Blackboard on a laptop or desktop
Scroll down to Course Management on the course menu. Select Course Tools. Then select Tests, Surveys, and Pools
Select Tests
Hover over the test named “Consent Form: Students Participating in Recorded Zoom Classroom Session” and select the action button. Then select Edit from the menu.
Next to Question 1, select the action button and then select Edit from the menu.
In the Question Text editor, highlight and replace the bold text to enter the course name and the dates the course will run this semester.
Select Submit in the bottom right
On the bottom right, select OK to leave the test canvas
You will need to make the consent form test available to your students. Please follow the steps to deploy a test found on Blackboard Assessments.
No other test settings need to be changed from the default. Select Submit in the bottom right.
Blackboard App for Mobile Devices
Support for the Blackboard Instructor app ended on September 30, 2022. The unified Blackboard app will allow students and instructors to engage with their classes from any device. As an instructor, you can use the app to create content, post announcements, grade student work, and more. Faculty are encouraged to downloaded the unified Blackboard app. More information on Teaching with Blackboard app
Contact the ITS Help Desk in the Library Room 230 or at (203) 254-4069 for assistance.