Managing Podcast Settings

It's very likely that you've come to this page because you've added a podcast to your Blackboard course following these instructions (page opens in new window), and you want to allow your students to subscribe to the podcast so that they can download it to an iPod or other MP3 player. Please be aware that once you allow your students to subscribe to a podcast, it's theoretically possible that others (not enrolled in your course) can also subscribe, if they know the correct RSS feed. However, it's highly unlikely that they would be able to discover what RSS feed to use, so in general, your podcast audience will be limited to the students in your course who can access the subscribe button within your Blackboard course.

To allow your students to subscribe to your podcasts:

  1. If you're not already at the Control Panel for your course, then log in to Blackboard (opens in new window), and click on your course among the list of "Courses you are teaching" in the My Courses section of the opening page. Within that course, go to the Control Panel by clicking on the Control Panel icon near the bottom of the left-hand navigation menu.

  2. Within the Course Tools section of the Control Panel (on the left-hand side of your browser window, in the middle), click on the Manage Podcast link:

    Manage Podcast Link

    (Please note that your "Course Tools" section may look slightly different from the figure above, depending on how many tools you have made available in your course.)

  3. Blackboard will take you to a Manage Podcasts page. The "Feed Title" will have your course name plus "Podcast" by default, as in "ENGL201-01 Shakespeare (SP2006) Podcast." Scroll down to the Options section, and click on the radio button next to "Everyone". Then click on the Submit button to send the changes to the server:

    Generate RSS Feed for Podcast

  4. Blackboard will return you to the Control Panel for your course.

Unfortunately, if students want to subscribe to your podcast, they need to go to a different part of your course from where they view the podcasts as course content. They can follow these instructions on how to subscribe to a podcast (using iTunes in particular).

Last revised July 25, 2007.   Please send questions or comments to itec@bucknell.edu.