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The Blackboard Manual


Blackboard TEL Guides

The Blackboard Manual

The Control Panel

The Control Panel within a Blackboard Course or Organisation is only accessible to Instructors (students cannot see it). You can access all course settings, set up tools in advance as well as view all content uploaded to a course or organisation.

ead information

Files, Tools, Evaluation, Users and Groups

The Files area is where all content uploaded to a course or organisation is stored. You can perform basic or advanced searches to find files (for review or removal) here. If you wish to see a list of all files added, you can click on the course or organisation ID (in this case - LGTG2000).

The Course Tools menu provides Instructor access to all available tools that can be used in your course. Tools such as Discussion Boards, Blogs, Journals and Wikis can all be set up in advance, and then made available to students by adding links via the Tools button on any content area. Blackboard Rubrics can also be created from the Course Tools menu to enable quick, structured feedback and marking. You can use the Email tool to email single students, groups of students or other instructors. The Tests, Surveys and Pools submenu allows you to:

  • construct graded tests with multiple question types
  • create anonymised, ungraded surveys
  • set up a store (or pool) of questions that can be reused on multiple tests and surveys, and exported to other courses

The Evaluation menu provides Instructor access to course reports detailing student engagement, participation and activity. The Performance Dashboard provides quick information on the days since last course access, review status if set and discussion board entries for all students. The Retention Centre allows Instructors to monitor students that might be "at risk" or in need of additional help or attention.

The Users submenu allows Instructors to view all staff, student and external users currently enrolled on a course or organisation. The Groups submenu provides a way to split enrolled users in to specific groups, which can then be used to hide or release content, set up group tools and assessments, as well as enable tutors to email specific groups of students. Users can be added to groups manually by an instructor, randomly by the system, or selected by the students themselves.