Managing Non-Credit Organization spaces in Blackboard

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Naming conventions

Naming conventions outlined here are intended to help avoid confusion in the future, as multiple similarly-named courses can be hard to maintain. Thus, try to follow the formats described in the examples given in the instructions. Doing so will make it easier for you and the organization's users to find and use the courses down the road.

Creating an Organization

Note: It can take up to 24 hours before you see an organization appear to you as an admin after creating it. This is because the process that adds Organizations to your "domain" in Bb only runs once a day for performance reasons.

  1. Proceed to System Admin -> Organizations
  2. Click on the “Create Organization” button, and select "New".
  3. Enter a title for the new Organization. The for example, if you are making a training for finance software, the name of the course might be something like: DOMAINCODE 005: Running a Financial Widget.
  4. Enter the Organization ID so that it looks something like:DOMAINCODE_TIMEMANAGEMENT001_2018, DOMAINCODE_COMMUNITY002_2018, or DOMAINCODE_FINANCE005_2018
  5. Set the category for the organization. Select “DOMAINCODE (Category Title)” and click top arrow to assign the organization category. ⚠️ Not doing this will prevent you from seeing and modifying the organization after you add it. ⚠️
  6. If students will be logging in with NetID's: under Enrollment Options, check the box labeled “Allow Students to Email Enrollment Requests to the Instructor”, or choose “Self Enrollment”
  7. Submit

Allowing self-enrollment

  1. Log into Bb and go to System Admin -> Organizations
  2. Search for the Organization, then click on the grey button that appears when you hover over the course ID, and select “Edit”.
  3. Under Enrollment Options, check the box labeled “Allow Students to Email Enrollment Requests to the Instructor”, or choose “Self Enrollment”
  4. Click the submit button.

Self-Enrolling in an organization

At that point, the course will be ready for students to request enrollment. Here are the steps a new student would follow:

  1. Log in to https://bb.uvm.edu
  2. Search for the organization name, i.e. by entering “WEBTEAM” into the organization search box on the landing page.
  3. Hover mouse over the course id, and click on the grey button that appears to the left of the course id.
  4. Select “Enroll”
  5. Click “Submit”

Enrolling an instructor/leader

Instructors must self-enroll in the same manner as students/participants do, after which the admin can change their role in the space to Leader (which is the organization's version of an instructor.

If you are trying to add yourself as a leader/instructor to an organization you've created, you can self-enroll in it, then follow the steps below to change your own role in the space to leader or assistant. Alternatively, if you click on the course to enter it, you may be able to click on the "Quick Enroll" button at the bottom of the menu on the left - this will give you instructor/leader permissions.

Changing a Participant’s role to Leader

  1. Have the instructor self-enroll as a student
  2. As admin, proceed to System Admin -> Organizations
  3. Search for and locate the space they enrolled in
  4. Click the grey chevron button next to the course, and select the “Enrollments” option.
  5. Click the grey chevron next to the person’s name, and choose “edit”.
  6. Change their role as needed, and click submit.