Course Entry Point

In Blackboard, the Course Entry Point is the first thing students see when they go into your course. The default Course Entry Point generated when we create new containers is the Tools Area. The reason is that when containers are created, that is the only menu item it can be set to, but the Tools Area is not a good thing for students to see when they enter your course.

A better thing for students to see when they enter your course is Announcements. Announcements makes a good Course Entry Point because you can post a Welcome message there, and as the semester goes on, you can post any important information that comes up.

The first thing you have to do is make sure you have the Announcements tool link on your course menu. To find out how to create this link, please watch the video at http://youtu.be/JmnfStgKdUA. Also, follow the instructions in that video on how to move Announcements to the top of your course menu.

Next you need to set your Course Entry Point to Announcements. To do this:

1. In the Control Panel click Customization
2. then click Style. 
3. in section 4, click the drop-down
4. click on Announcements
5. click Submit.

Flex Week Workshops

As followers of this blog, you might be interested in attending some of these workshops offered during Flex Week. 

Tuesday, January 17

11am – Noon     Accessibility

1pm – 3pm         Great Practices in Online Teaching

3pm – 4pm         EduStream

Wednesday, January 18

5:30 – 6:30pm     Blackboard I - Getting Started

7pm – 8pm          Blackboard II - Managing the Course Menu and Adding Items

Thursday, January 19

2:30 – 3:30pm      Blackboard III - Grade Center

4 – 5 pm               Blackboard IV - Tests and Quizzes

Friday, January 20

9am – 10am         Blackboard V - Assignments and SafeAssignments

10am – Noon       Open Lab

No Students in the Grade Center

You will not see your students listed in the Grade Center when you go into your Blackboard containers before doing a course copy. The reason for this is that we removed the default Weighted Total and Total columns from the template that all new containers are built from so that these columns would not be duplicated once the old semester is copied into the new one.

However, it can be disconcerting to look at your Grade Center and not see any students there. If you are building a new course from scratch and/or not planning to copy in an old course, you can add your own Total column to the Grade Center, then your students will appear there.

To add a Total column:

1. Control Panel > Full Grade Center
2. Hover over Create Calculated Column and click Total Column
3. Type Total in the Column Name field
4. Leave all the other fields the way they are
5. Click Submit

Now you should be able to see all your students in the Grade Center.