Adding Content to your Courses
Course content can be added to the following areas:
Announcements
this is where you would place notices about room changes, new quizzes being posted etc
Course Information
this is where you would place material relevant to the whole course... such as module descriptors, the course handbook etc
Course Documents
this is where you would include the main learning materials of the module... course notes - Word, PowerPoint files etc
The screens/interfaces that you use to upload content into these areas are all very much alike. They consist of a number of fields to type details into, buttons to locate/attach files, and options to select. The instructions below refer to the generic features of all of these content upload areas:
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Click on Control Panel - or if you're in the student view, click on Edit View (top right of the screen) and jump to stage 3 of these instructions...
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Choose whether you wish to upload Course Information, Course Documents, or an Announcement - and click the appropriate link within the Control Panel
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Choose whether to either add an Item or a Folder (in which to place the items) If there are a significant number of files to upload, folders can be a very useful way of grouping the content . For example, materials can be grouped by subject area, chronologically week-by-week etc. There are other options here to upload external links, course links etc - please refer to the manual for descriptions of each of these upload options...
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Section 1: In the Name field, type in the name of the content or title of the announcement - e.g. 'Course Handbook' or 'Room change' Underneath, you can choose a color for this title, but take care to choose accessible colors (i.e. good contrast between text and background - and maintain some consistency of color throughout your course). In the Text field either type/copy&paste your content, or if you are going to attach a file (such as Word, PowerPoint etc) just offer the student a description of the file in this box.
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Section 2: If you're attaching a file, click the Browse button to locate it. Give the attachment a meaningful name and put the type of file in brackets after the name. e.g. 'Lecture Three (PowerPoint)'. It's good practice to do this, as the student should be aware of the file type that they are downloading - to ensure they have the correct software to open it. For the Special Action options either chose Create a link if it's a straightforward attachment - choose Display media file within the page if you're embedding an image, audio or video (please see page regarding Media in Blackboard) or if you're uploading a zip file select the Unpackage this file option.
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Section 3: Here you are offered a number of options. Select whether you wish to make the content immediately visible to the students, or whether you wish them to access the content at a later date. If uploading media files such as video, you will need to add this as Offline content (delivered from CD) If you wish to do this, please see the page on Media in Blackboard. You can choose whether to track the students accessing the content, and you can also Add metadata (this is just data about the file) The final option allows you to choose a date/time for the content to appear and disappear. This can be particularly useful with announcements, and can also be used to phase learning content to the students. Use the drop down menus to select date/time.
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Section4: Click on the Submit button.
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You will receive a receipt acknowledging that the content has successfully been uploaded. Click OK.
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Check that the content you've uploaded is correctly displayed in the student view by clicking back on the course and then browsing the relevant section.
Need Further Assistance?
If you can't find the information you require please contact the MBU Center for Distance Learning at 314-744-5349 or distancelearning@mobap.edu.
Files which are in PDF format require Acrobat
Reader for viewing.
