User Management

I want to add a Teaching Assistant (TA) to my course site
I want to give another instructor access to my course site
A student dropped out of my class. How do I remove them from my Blackboard course site?
I'd like to create student groups - how do I do this?
Course roles in Blackboard

I want to add a Teaching Assistant (TA) to my course site

Please issue a TrackIt advising the following:
◊Last and first name of TA or adjunct to be added
◊Indicate the course using the FULL COURSE ID (e.g., COUR.101..01.2011.20). Requests without the full course ID will not be fulfilled.
◊What role you want them to be designated within the course site. See Course roles for clarification.
Please note that the person to be added as a TA must have an active USF network profile and therefore a network username and password.

I want to give another instructor access to my course site

Instructors are automatically added to course sites based on the information contained in the Registrar's database, Jenzabar. If, however, you wish for a colleague to have access to the course for observing or grading purposes, please issue a TrackIt following the steps as above for adding a TA. Courses can only have one primary instructor. Apart from a written request from the Department Head/Chair, it is ONLY the Registrar assigned instructor to any given course that has the authority to request additional instructors . You may not make a request to be added to someone else's course. Even if it is a grad-student that is overseeing a course for you, if the Registrar has assigned them as the instructor of the course, they must make the written request for any changes to their course, including course combinations.

A student dropped out of my class. How do I remove them from my Blackboard course site?

You don't. Even though you can find ways to delete students, this is something that the Jenzabar Snapshot process does, checking Bb automatically, on a daily basis against the official roster and paperwork. If you delete a student that hasn't been officially removed from Jenzabar, you will find that Jenzabar will repopulate this student in your course the following day. In addition, the moment you delete a student from your course you remove all work the student uploaded as well as their existence in Grade Center. If the student has a change of heart before the offical paperwork goes through, you will have lost all record of that student's work up to that point. Even if the student informs you of their desire to drop the class, they may wait too long and it then becomes an issue of having to give them a grade of "Withdraw Failing". If you've deleted them from your course you will have no record of their progress in the course and no proof of their failing grade. Your best option is to simply hide the student and let the Snapshot process do its job.

I'd like to create student groups - how do I do this?

Creating student groups can help your sort and manage large groups of students more effectively. Using groups is useful for emailing, discussion board and collaboration. To create student groups:

From the Control Panel click on ‘Groups' under the Users and Groups section.
Choose either to 'Create Single Group' or 'Create Group Set' (in a Group Set you will be able to name the set, e.g., Breakout, and then chose how many groups to create)
Choose either 'Self-Enroll", where the students will decide, or 'Manual', where you will determine the group members.
Type a name for the group and if desired, a description.
Check the ‘Tool Availability' that you wish to be available to the group (I recommend selecting all of them).
If you chose 'Manual' enroll, select membership for group/groups.
Click ‘Submit' and ‘OK'.
Rinse & Repeat as necessary.

Course roles in Blackboard

Course roles are preset roles that determine the level of access a user has within a course. Users can have only one role per course. Roles are course-specific, so a single user could be in an instructor role in one course and a student in another course. There are six course roles (for our purposes, you only need to concern yourself with three):

Instructor: The Instructor role has access to everything in the course Control Panel.
Teaching Assistant: The Teaching Assistant role has access to most functions in the Control Panel, but cannot remove users, copy or archive a course or manage the course menu.
Course Builder: The Course Builder role has access only to the Content Area section of the Control Panel.
Grader: The Grader role only has access to the Assessment section, Collaboration tool and the digital drop box in the Control Panel.
Student: The Student role is the default course role. Students do not have access to the Control Panel. We cannot add students.
Guest: The Guest role has no access to any areas in the Control Panel and limited access to the course site. Due to our security settings, Guest is not an option.