By Russell Davidson, Associate Director of Digital Education
As you start thinking about setting up your courses for next term, CETL has some tips to help you along the way. These tips cover both items we get a lot of questions about around the start of a new term and Blackboard features folks might not be aware of (like batch updating due dates and availability windows). Without further ado, let’s dive in:
Course Copy
Most faculty know you can copy a course’s content and activities from one course site to another. That said, knowing you can is a different matter from remembering how. To refresh your memory, check out the CETL help page on copying courses —
Course Copy (classic)
Course Copy (ultra)
If you’re copying a classic-style course, we strongly recommend hitting the SELECT ALL button, then unchecking announcements. We recommend this because some items, like tests and assignments, only copy if multiple parts are copied –for example, to copy a test that appears in a content area you need to include: the content area the test has been deployed to; the Tests, Surveys, & Pools section, where the test questions reside; and the Grades section. Choosing SELECT ALL ensures you don’t miss one of these sections by mistake and end up losing the test.
Post-Copy Cleanup
After you’ve got your course content copied into your Term 2 2025 course site, you’ll probably want to make some changes. Certainly, the old syllabus will need to be swapped with a new one. You may also have grading columns you don’t need this time or activities you’re changing up for the new term. As you consider these changes, you may be tempted to hide old content rather than delete it.
Resist that temptation.
Unused content and activities can make your course site confusing. This is especially true of unused tests, assignments, and gradebook columns. You’ll still have the old course site to refer to if necessary. If you delete a test from a content area, classic-style users can re-add the test from the course’s Test Manager and ultra-style users can just use item copy to pull in that one assessment. Individual content items can be re-copied on their own (see our help page here: Item Copy).
Re-Authorize LockDown Browser & YuJa Media Library Video
To make sure your copied LockDown Browser settings are up to date in the current course site, make sure you visit the LockDown Browser Dashboard. You can get to this in a classic-style course site by clicking Respondus LockDown Browser in the black menu on the left, under the Course Tools heading. In an ultra-style course, click View course & institution tools under the Books & Tools heading on the right side of your course Content page, then scroll down to and click the RESPONDUS Lockdown Browser Dashboard button.
To make sure your new course has been authorized to show your YuJa Media Library videos, launch any one of your embedded or linked videos from inside the new course.
Bulk Update Due Dates and Availability Windows
A time consuming part of the clean up process is fixing due dates and availability windows for your content. If you’re not already familiar, we strongly recommend you check out the classic-style course’s Date Management tool and the ultra-style course’s Batch Edit page —
Adjust All Due Dates & Availability Windows (classic)
Adjust All Due Dates & Availability Windows (ultra)
These tools let you see and edit the due dates and availability windows for all the items (documents, files, folders), assessments (assignments, tests, etc), and tools (discussion, blogs, journals, etc) in your course from a single page.
Enroll Secondary Faculty
If you need a TA, program chair, or other additional faculty (or faculty support person) enrolled in your course site, you can do this yourself.
Add an Account to a Course Site (classic)
Add an Account to a Course Site (ultra)
If you cannot find the account you need to enroll, please contact ask-CETL@udmercy.edu. Please be sure to include the person’s name, Detroit Mercy email address, and the Blackboard course site ID.
Remember, students and faculty of record will be automatically enrolled through Blackboard’s Banner integration. Please do not manually enroll these folks in your course site, as doing so will break the integration.
Need Course Sites Merged?
If you’ve got multiple sections of the same class on your list for the Winter, don’t forget that CETL can merge them for you. Just send an email to ask-CETL@udmercy.edu. Be sure to provide the full course IDs (this page shows how to find your course site ID) for all the courses you want merged and indicate which of the course sites you want to use (the parent). If you’re not sure which you want to use, we recommend using the site that is least likely to be closed, that way if the Registrar’s Office closes that section, your students will still have access to their course site.
If you’re new to the course merge process, please check out our page on the subject. You may want to pay particular attention to the Factors to Consider section, which outlines some of the implications of a course merge that are important to keep in mind before placing your request.