Courses from last term are on the My Courses list. How do I remove them?

You cannot remove them permanently, but you can at least stop them from showing up. Click the little pencil icon on the right hand of the ‘My Courses’ box. This will lead you to a screen where you can check or uncheck the items you want listed.

• Out of courtesy, you should contact the Instructor for that course and inform them that the course is still available in Blackboard, even though the course is over.
• Instructors should make courses unavailable at the end of each term, so they do not show up on the student’s My Courses menu or the Course list.

I enrolled in the wrong course by mistake. How do I fix that?

You cannot remove yourself from a course. (For good reason, too: so you don’t remove yourself from the right course by accident.)

Contact the Instructor for the course you enrolled in by mistake and ask them to remove you from the course list.

How do I find the course I am supposed to enroll in?

Your Instructor will give you the Course ID and Title of the course in class. These are not always the same as the official registrar ID and title of the course. Double check them when searching.

Important Reminder: Blackboard course account and course enrollment are not connected in any way to the Registrar’s official enrollment in a class. You must be officially registered in a course before enrolling in it in Blackboard. “Enrolling” in a class in Blackboard does not mean you are actually enrolled in the course itself, just that you are using Blackboard for that course.

1. To Enroll in a course, you first need to search for it in the Course Search box. First, click the Courses tab.



2. This will take you to the Courses Search box where you should put in the course id or course name of the course.

Q: What if I can’t find the course?

A: Try some alternate search strategies:

• Try searching for just the first part of the course id, e.g. PHIL, instead of PHIL101a_fall06, so you will get a bigger search result list to pick from
• Try searching for a single word in the course title, e.g. “Philosophy”, “Ancient”, “Cinema”
• Try searching for part or the start of the word in the course title, e.g. searching for “cine” will return both “Cinema” and “Medicine”
• Try searching for a word that is or might be in the course description
• Try the advanced search to search for all courses for that Instructor: choose the “Username” button and then search for your Instructor’s name
• If still not found, and if you are sure the course id and name are correct, contact your Instructor and ask them if they have made the course available yet, or if they have set dates on enrollment. Instructors can see their courses even if you cannot, so they may have forgotten to make a course available or limited it by dates for students.

3. When you find the course in the list, click the Enroll button on the far right side of the course name.



->(Do not click the course link yet, or you will get an “Access Denied” error, since you are not yet enrolled in the class. Click the enroll button to enroll.)

I see an “Access Denied” error when I click on the title of the course I want to enroll in.

To avoid seeing the image below, click the Enroll button on the far right side of the course name, not the title of the class, when you want to add a new course.

See the question: “How do I find the course I am supposed to enroll in?”for further instructions about enrolling.

How can I add a banner to my course startup page?

A “banner” is a graphic logo you can set for a course that will appear above the Announcements page of a course. It can be used to give a visual entrance point to your course.

1. You need to create a graphic file of type .gif or .jpg, and then upload it to the course via Control Panel > Settings > Course Design > Course Banner.
2. The suggested size is 400 pixels wide by 50 pixels high, but it can be larger or smaller. See the Blackboard 101 course for an example of a banner.

Here is a sample suggested size banner image:

Can I delete the Course Buttons on the left-hand side?

1. You can change, delete, and rename the Menu buttons on the left hand side that are related to the Content Areas: Course Information, Course Documents, External Links, Assignments, you may do with as you wish. Configure these in the Control Panel > Manage Course Menu area.
2. You can change the color and style of the buttons in the Control Panel > Settings > Course Design > Course Design area.

WARNING! Do NOT delete the Announcements, Tools, Discussion Board, or Communications buttons, even if you don’t use them. Once you delete them it is very difficult and sometimes impossible to get them back.