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Building Your Course

If you have spent sufficient time planning your Blackboard course, the process of building the course site will be relatively straightforward.

  1. The first step in building your Blackboard course site is to set up an account if you don't already have one. Blackboard accounts are automatically activated once you have set up your MyNEU account on the University portal. The username and password are the same for both systems. If you have not yet activated your MyNEU account you may do so at http://www.myneu.neu.edu. Accounts are available for use immediately in the portal, however it can take up to 24 hours for the account to be available for use in Blackboard.
  2. If you already have an account, log on to the Northeastern Blackboard site at http://blackboard.neu.edu. A Blackboard course should show up automatically in your account for each course you are teaching. If you don't see any courses you may submit a Course Request Form to request that you be added as the instructor of any courses you are teaching. It may take up to 24 hours to process your request.
  3. Once you've logged in to Blackboard, you will be taken to your personalized Blackboard homepage. Within the "My Courses" module you will see your courses listed. Click on the title of one of your courses, and you will be taken to the home page for that course.

    Screenshot of faculty home page in Blackboard

  4. Once you have entered your course site, locate the Control Panel button at the very bottom of the left navigation buttons.

    Screenshot of course home page with control panel button

  5. You will build your entire course by using the tools in the Control Panel.

    Screenshot of control panel

    The Control Panel is divided into 6 sections:

    • The links under Content Areas allow you to add content to different areas of your course site. It is in these sections you will be adding the bulk of your course materials including syllabus, course documents, assignments, any multimedia files, etc.
    • Course Tools controls all of the communication options, including Announcements, Course Calendar, Discussion Board, and DropBox (for file exchange).
    • Course Options allows you to customize the navigation and appearance of your course site, and set options such as course availability and guest access.
    • Within User Management you can manually enroll and remove students from your course as well as create small groups for team assignments.
    • The Assessment area enables you to create online quizzes and surveys, manage your course Gradebook, and review students' usage of your site.
    • Support houses the online instructor manual and other Blackboard resources for instructors. (There are additional resources available to instructors by clicking on the Help button at the top of any course page.)
  6. Instructions on using the different tools of the Control Panel are available at http://www.ats.neu.edu/blackboard/requests/faculty_help.

Step-by-Step Instructions

The EdTech Center has developed some instructional materials on building course components. These materials are available as PDFs below.

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