If students are reporting that they can’t see your course in Blackboard, you likely need to change its availability setting.
By default, your Blackboard course starts as “unavailable” to students. There will also be no students in the enrollment list. This allows you time to set up your course before they can access it. MaineStreet will add students to your course automatically the day after it has been made available.
Try to make your course available at least one week before the start of the semester to allow enough time for the system to add your students to your course and to accommodate anxious/ambitious students who like to check in early.
View Video
Blackboard’s YouTube video, How to Make your Course Available to Students, covers these steps.
Once you’re ready to open your course for students, you’ll need to manually change its availability setting before they can access it. Here’s how:
- Go to the course you want to make available.
- Click the Customization link in the “Course Management” section of the left-hand menu to display its options. (If you don’t see the Customization link, click the Control Panel link to make sure all of its menu options are visible.)
- Click the Properties link. A page with your course’s properties options will be displayed; scroll down to find the “Set Availability” section.
- Select Yes for the option next to “Make Course Available.”
- Click the Submit button at the bottom-right corner of the page. Your course is now available, and students will be automatically enrolled in it from MaineStreet within 24 hours.
NOTE
If students officially drop your course in MaineStreet, they’ll be automatically dropped from your Blackboard course as well. Students who have dropped your course will still appear in its Grade Center, and any work they submitted will be saved in Blackboard, but they’ll no longer have access to the course site.
