Add Content

The ITEM tool lets you add a block of text, media (images, video, audio), and / or attached files to your course site. 

If you only want to add a single file — any kind of file, Powerpoint file, PDF file, Word file — with no accompanying text, the easiest method is to use the Add File to Content tool.

To get started, go to the Content Area in your course where you would like to add the content, then point to Build Content and choose Item under the Create heading.

Build content and Create Item buttons

Enter a name for the item you’re adding. If you’d like to change the color of the item link, click the (default black) color tile, and select a new color. Be sure to consider legibility and accessibility and avoid colors like yellow or pastels.

Add item and change color options

Enter your text in the large text box. If you’re attaching files to this item, use this space to describe what you’re posting and what you want students to do with the material.

To add video to the item, see our Embed a Video in a Textbox walkthrough.

Be sure to Submit to save your changes.

The DOCUMENT tool lets you add a page that contains one or more blocks of text, media (images, video, audio), and / or attached files to your course site. 

If you only want to add a single file — any kind of file, Powerpoint file, PDF file, Word file — with no accompanying text, the easiest method is to use the Add File to Content tool.

To get started, go to the main Content Area of your course, click the Add button (+),  choose CREATE, then from the CREATE ITEM panel that opens on the right side, choose Document.

animated image of create document dropdown menu

Give your Document a name at the top left.

Edit title of document

In the top-right, you can choose whether you want the material to be immediately available or hidden from students (the drop-down menu). This option is also available from the main course content list.

Hide from students drop down menu

There are three types of items you can add to a document, and you can have more than one of each of these in a single document.

Options to build the document

  • You can Add Content (type or paste directly into Blackboard, embed media)
  • Upload from Computer (attach a file stored on your computer). This will open your local storage (Windows Explorer or Mac Finder) and you can choose your file/s. When adding a file this way you cannot add a description, so be sure to use the "content" area to include information about what the attached files are, why they are of interest, and how your students should use them.
  • Upload from Cloud Storage (copy a file into Blackboard from a cloud storage location like your Detroit Mercy OneDrive account). Follow these directions to first connect to your Cloud Storage.

Click the Add Content button to start typing on the screen (or to paste text from another source, which is rarely a bad idea). The text editor toolbar provides you with some common options, including changing the text style, linking to other web sites, and adding image or video sources. See our Text Box Tools articles for more information.

Be sure to Save your changes by clicking the SAVE button at the bottom-right of the text editor.

Use Suggestion: If you're going to embed several videos that you'd like the students to watch in sequence, consider adding these to a single document (rather than adding separate documents for each). See this walkthrough on embedding a video in a textbox.