Introduction
Best practices for Blackboard might vary slightly by campus and where there are different programs such as the Rural Health Program. Overall, we strive to maintain comparability of design and user experience for the three campuses. Comparability in this sense means we attempt to organize Blackboard in a similar way across the campuses. Each campus has their own unique environment which may require that one campus organizes their content in Blackboard in a different way from the other campuses.
Click on the tabs below for general concepts to help you use Blackboard effectively.
There is an additional section below the information about Blackboard to help you understand how to embed the Articulate / Rise modules created by faculty within Blackboard.
Blackboard Guidance for Coordinators & Staff
Organization of Weekly Content in Blackboard for Phase 1 Courses
For each week of a Phase 1 block course, we use the learning module tool in Blackboard to build our content. In the image, you can see a general way each campus creates learning modules, though there might be differences between campuses. Please include the dates for each weekly module.
Notice there is text describing what is inside the learning module. This is a convenience we put in place to help students (also faculty and staff) determine what is inside each learning module before clicking on it to access the content. If there are changes in sessions for a week (e.g. title change, a session moved to a different week, etc.), the list of content should also be updated.
Organization of Content in Blackboard for Phase 2 Courses
Ideally, each clerkship works with its counterparts at each campus to organize content within its clerkship sections in a similar way.
Why is it important to have a similar organization?
It helps to have a similar organization so students know they are getting the same experience across campuses from clerkship to clerkship.
Using the Activity Template to Populate Blackboard in Phase 1
In phase 1, faculty create or edit existing activity templates for each instructional activity that takes place. These activity templates are Word (.docx) files that can be edited electronically. They are stored in Box in the same folder as the rest of materials for an activity. They can also be copied over to the next academic year for editing.
In Blackboard you can create a template ‘item’ that resembles the .docx activity template. You can hide this from external uses and make copies of it to populate your block content. See an example in the image. A coordinator created an ‘item’ and hid it from student view and it can be copied to other areas of the course to be filled out with content from the completed activity sheets in Box.
The activity template document can be found here.
Populating Blackboard with Student-Facing Content in Phase 2
In Phase 2, the process is fairly straightforward. Unlike Phase 1, the activity template, which plays a significant role in content organization, is not used in Phase 2. Clerkship coordinators often copy content from previous years, use copy-paste from emails or other documents, or type the information manually. While there is no activity template in Phase 2, clerkship coordinators can still follow some general tips and tricks. Here are a few recommendations:
- Line Breaks: When you type and press the Enter key, Blackboard assumes you want an extra line break. If you prefer to avoid this extra space, hold down the Shift key while pressing Enter. This will keep the line spacing tight.
- Text Formatting: It’s advisable to ‘tighten’ your text. When copying and pasting from emails or other documents, Blackboard may not format the content correctly, leading to excessive white space that can look unprofessional. To clean it up, highlight the text that appears disorganized, then select the button in the toolbar that looks like a “T” with a line through it. This action will typically remove the unwanted formatting, allowing you to reformat the text as needed.
Connecting or Enabling Access to Library Materials to Sessions in Blackboard for Phases 1-3
When students, faculty, and staff are on campus and connected to the university’s internet, accessing library content (such as databases and articles) is usually seamless. However, off-campus access can sometimes be a bit confusing. You typically should not need to perform the following steps, but they may be necessary in certain situations.
If you find that students cannot access a link to an electronic text chapter (for example) that you added to Blackboard, ensure that the following proxy URL is added to the beginning of the URL:
http://proxy.cc.uic.edu/login?url=
An example:
A chapter from a textbook on Dementia in ClinicalKey: https://www.clinicalkey.com/#!/content/book/3-s2.0-B9780323032759100066
If you need or want help doing this, please reach out to your college-level representatives or the coordinators with tri-campus oversight for each block.
Linking (Box) Files and Websites to Blackboard
To link files from Box to Blackboard, please refer to the guidance provided in this Google Doc. If you need assistance with this process, feel free to reach out to your local or tri-campus coordinator, or contact an instructional designer in the Office of Educational Affairs.
Standards for Creating Links of Any Kind:
When creating links in Blackboard, whether to documents or websites, be sure to include a title in the dialog box. This title provides context for users with visual impairments or those using accessibility software.
Additionally, set the option to “Open link in…” to “New Window.” This ensures that the document or webpage opens in a new tab in most browsers, preventing users from leaving the Blackboard environment.
Using Adaptive Release - What Is It?
Adaptive Release is a feature in Blackboard that allows you to create rules to control how and when content is made available to students. For instance, if you are working ahead with content provided by faculty, you can prepare activities and materials for future weeks in Blackboard and establish rules for when they will be visible to students. You can see how this works in the accompanying image.
What to do with content in Blackboard? Copy? Move? Link it?
To copy or move over specific content (such as a syllabus document / file) to a different location in the same course or a different course, find the content in Blackboard and click on the menu option to the right of the content.
Copy – it makes a copy from one course to another or one folder to another on the same course.
Move – it moves the content from one course to another or one folder to another on the same course.
Phase 1
Please note that we transitioned away from uploading files directly to Blackboard (for now, in Phase 1).
In Phase 1, coordinators / staff link directly to files that are located in Box rather than uploading them directly to Blackboard. Here is a document that outlines this process: Linking Materials from Box to Blackboard.
Phases 2 & 3
For other phases (Phase 2 / 3), please see the image to help you visualize this process.
Copying Content in Bulk from One Course to Another
You can copy larger chunks of content from one course to another by using the Course Copy feature in Blackboard. To find this feature, go to Course Management > Packages and Utilities > Course Copy.
Use Browse to find the course where you want the content to go. (You can also find this information in the destination course by going to Course Management > Properties > Course ID). Check boxes next to what content you want to copy over.
Please be careful with this option. If you check boxes next to everything, it will copy everything. If another coordinator then tries to also copy over their block content or a clerkship, it will re-copy that content to the destination course.
Phase 1
Coordinators and Staff should not need to copy entire course content from one year to another. Please reach out to the Director of Instructional Design and Learning Innovation or to your tri-campus coordinators for help. We are migrating from uploading files directly to Blackboard and linking to them from Box.
Phases 2 & 3
Clerkship and elective coordinators and instructors can reach out to the Director of Instructional Design and Learning Innovation if you need more specific aid in completing this task.
Creating Links to Websites and Email Addresses
Websites
It’s helpful to have the website you want to link open in another browser tab. In Blackboard, highlight the text you want to use as the link to the website.
Note: It’ a best practice to write out the name of the website or to copy and paste the actual website URL into Blackboard.
Here’s an example of what should be avoided.
Click on this link to see the website mentioned.
Here is a clearer version of the text:
Click on the University of Illinois College of Medicine website to learn more.
The reason the latter option is preferable is that it takes into account individuals who may have accessibility needs. For users utilizing screen readers, the first option is not very descriptive, while the second option provides a much clearer description, helping users understand what to click on.
Additionally, it is a best practice to have links open in a new window rather than in the current window. Opening links in a new tab allows users to remain on Blackboard, while opening them in the current tab replaces the existing Blackboard page with the linked website. This can create usability issues, as users may need to open another tab and navigate back to their previous location on Blackboard.
Example of Linking to ‘new window’
Click on the University of Illinois College of Medicine website to learn more.
Example of Linking to ‘current window’
Click on the University of Illinois College of Medicine website to learn more.
When you clicked on the link labeled ‘current window,’ it closed this tab and opened the new link. You will need to navigate back to this page. This occurs when links are not configured to open in a new window or tab.
Email Addresses
Creating links to email addresses is a process similar to creating links to websites. The primary difference is that instead of using a URL, you use the “mailto:” protocol followed by the email address (e.g., mailto:emailaddress@uic.edu).
You can apply the same options as you would for website links: add a title for the link (for example, “Email Dr. Jones”) and set it to open in a new window.
Using HTML to Clean Up Formatting
Blackboard is often inefficient at interpreting HTML code, particularly when content is copied and pasted from an email or a Word document. Many users are unaware that the HTML code used to format websites is quite similar to the code used for bold or italic text in Word. However, the differences in the code can cause Blackboard to struggle with interpretation.
More text
Have you noticed a white background behind text you’ve copied and pasted? Or that bulleted lists don’t look as expected? Editing the HTML in Blackboard can help.
What is HTML? HTML, or HyperText Markup Language, is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser (Wikipedia).
There is code in the background of a website that browsers like Chrome or Firefox use to determine how text should appear and how images should be aligned with text. Blackboard functions in a similar way, providing a graphical representation of that code.
In the example image, there is a lot of code—often more than the actual text visible to the user. This can happen when copying text from a Word document and pasting it into Blackboard. The platform may add unnecessary code.
If the content looks fine to the user, there may not be a need for concern. However, when editing in Blackboard using toolbar functions, like creating bulleted lists, the results might not meet expectations. Viewing and manually editing the code can improve formatting. The sample image shows that the code can seem messy.
For more information on editing HTML code, contact the director of instructional design or check with your campus coordinators for additional help and training.
This website offers a helpful guide for basic HTML code to improve the appearance of your content.