Making a Course Available to Students

As part of our "Snapshot" process, we create blank Blackboard course shells for all courses being offered during a semester, based on the course listings in Banner. Those courses are initially created as "unavailable"; in other words, a student won't actually be able to get to a course in Blackboard unless the faculty member changes a particular setting to make that course available to students. To activate your Blackboard course for the semester (that is, to make it available to students):

  1. 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. The course link should be black in color, and you should see "[Unavailable]" at the end of the course name:

    Unavailable Course

  2. Within that course, go to the Control Panel by clicking on the Control Panel icon near the bottom of the left-hand navigation menu.

  3. Within the Course Options section of the Control Panel (in the bottom-left quadrant of your browser window), click on the Settings link:

    Settings

  4. Among the links on that "Settings" page, click on the Course Availability link (the second from the top):

    Course Availability Link

  5. Click on the radio button next to "Yes" (for Make Course Available), and click on the Submit button to send your changes to the server:

    Make Course Available

  6. Blackboard will respond that the settings for your course "have been updated." Click on the OK Button button two successive times to return to the Control Panel for your course.

Note: For an animated tutorial showing you how to execute these steps, see http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/isr/TeachingAndTechnology/Blackboard/Help/Tutorials/MakeAvailable/.

Last revised January 17, 2008 .   Please send questions or comments to itec@bucknell.edu.