Managing Content Areas and Course Menu Options

Courses are populated into Blackboard with a template including popular tools and content items such as the Home Page and Discussion board. You can reorder, hide, delete, or add new items to the course menu to customize your student's experience within your course.

Add a New Content Area

Whether you are organizing your course content by modules or content type, you may need to create additional content areas in your course menu to upload content to.

1. Select the Add Menu Item  at the top of the course menu and select Content Area.
2. Enter a name, check the box to make it available to users and hit Submit.
   

Reorder Content Pages

New content is always appended to the bottom of the course menu. When adding new content or copying a course from one semester to the next, you may need to reorder the course menu.

1. Select the Keyboard Accessible Reordering (↑↓) at the top of the course menu
2. Find and select the content you want to move from the list
3. Use the arrows to reorder the content up or down
   
   

Hide or Delete a Content Page

You can delete or hide unused items by hitting the dropdown menu to the right of the item title and selecting Delete or Hide, respectively.

Adding Content

Uploading, embed, or link to content your students need access to.

Content Folders

1. In your course, open the content page you want to add this piece of content to
2. Choose Build Content in the top left of the content area
3. Select Content Folder from the drop down menu.
   
   
   1. Name: Provide name for the content folder. If you are creating folders for weekly content, it is helpful to provide the topic in the folder name.
      

   2. Description: Optional - Enter a description outlining what types of content may be found within this folder.
      
      

      By default, the folder is available to students. If you would like to set a date restriction on the folder (e.g. Week 2 won’t open until the second week of classes, but you have already prepared the content), you can set a date range. Note: if you change “Permit Users to View this Content” to “no”, then you will need to manually make the content available even if you added a date range.

      
      

4. Select Submit at the bottom right.

Content Items

1. In your course, open the content page you want to add this piece of content to
2. Choose Build Content
3. Select Content Item
   
   1. Name: Enter a title or heading for this content

   2. Description: This is the text that will appear on the content page. You can add links, embed multimedia, or use MathType to enter a math equation. You can even embed HTML content by selecting source code from the options.

      If you are copying content from another program or website, such as Microsoft Word, we encourage you to remove formatting when pasting the content into Blackboard. This will improve the likelihood that the content will be responsive to device sizes and limit any barriers for assistive technology.

   3. Attachments: Attachments will appear above the description.

      After the files are selected, you have the option to change the titles. The default titles are the same as the file name. If you manually change this, it is recommended that you include the file type in the name (e.g., PDF, DOCX, XLXS, etc.) so students have a clear idea of whether the file will download or open in the web browser, and what program they will need to view the document.
      
      If you selected a file by mistake, choose Do Not Attach to the right of the file you want to remove.
      

   4. Standard Options: Most faculty usually leave the default settings, but you can customize the availability of the content items here.
      
4. Select Submit

Website and Resource Links

1. In your course, open the content page you want to add this link to
2. Choose Web Link
   
   1. Name: Enter a descriptive name for the web site. If you are linking to an article, include the full name of the article.a
   2. URL: Enter the URL for the resource
   3. Description: Enter a description for this resource. Is it optional or necessary for students to review?
   4. Attachments: You can also attach related documents to this content item. Attachments will appear above the description.
   5. Standard Options: Most faculty usually leave the default settings, but you can customize the availability of the content items here.
3. Select Submit

Files

1. In your course, open the content page you want to add this file to
2. Choose Files
   
   

   1. Name: Enter a descriptive name for the file.
      

      Adding the file type into the name lets your students know whether they need a specific app to view the document. For example, Syllabus (PDF) lets them know they can view the syllabus as a PDF within their web browser.

      
      

   2. Find File: If the file already exists on Blackboard, you can Browse Content Collection. If the file exists on your device, choose Browse Local Files
   3. File Options: If you are uploading a PDF, it is recommended that you change the File Options to open in a new window to minimize the number of clicks for a student to view the file. All other files download the students’ desktops and therefor no do not need to be opened in a new window.
   4. Standard Options: Most faculty usually leave the default settings, but you can customize the availability of the content items here.
      
3. Select Submit

Multimedia and Learning Tools

Videos and other large multimedia should be embedded using /wiki/spaces/HD/pages/31424898.

Academic Computing has connect several learning tools such as LinkedIn Learning, McGraw Hill, and many more. We encourage you to explore the options from any content page under Build Content, Tools, and Partner Content.

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