Guidance considerations

Once created, a Blackboard organisation will remain ‘live’ permanently, with students being enrolled for the period of their study, new students coming on after registration and completing students coming off at the end of their study. Files that have been uploaded will remain in the system – even if they are no longer displayed. Over time, announcements, resources or links may become out of date and need reviewing, updating, archiving or removing.

How the organisation is used may change, so its purpose and effectiveness should be reviewed regularly; as should the time allocated to maintaining it vs time spent vs recognised benefits.

The eLearning team can give advice on these aspects, and the case studies indicate some of the key considerations that academic colleagues have had. Before submitting a request for an organisation, we recommend that you discuss it with one of your School eLearning Technologists. They will be able to advise you on whether your needs and requirements are best met with an organisation, or if another course of action would be best.

Here are some points for consideration:

Roles, expectations, responsibilities

• What purposes will the organisation serve and what will prompt the student to go to the Blackboard organisation? How often would you like them to access it? What expectations will students have; what expectations do tutors have? Will students expect responses in a certain amount of time? How will you incorporate the Blackboard organisation into other communication routes that already exist? Are there ways that students can contribute or give feedback?
• Whose role will it be to look after the Blackboard organisation? How much time can you allocate to it (and are scope and tasks achievable for the time given)? How often will it be reviewed, updated, archived? How will you gauge whether students find it useful? 
  Take lead, coordinate, encourage involvement, supply source of documentation/outline of procedures, pass on information, give advice or feedback

Relationship between course units and Blackboard organisation

• What content should be stored at course unit level, and what at Blackboard organisation level? There could be advantages to removing duplication of content across individual course units if core programme information is stored at programme level – clearly signposted links within course units can direct students to materials stored in the Blackboard organisation space.

Managing displayed content and content collection

• Displayed content (visible/hidden, selective release, archiving, removing from display)
• Managing underlying file storage (not uploading multiple copies of the same document; organising uploads so that others can easily locate and identify files; archiving files that may still be needed in future; downloading files or deleting if no longer needed)
• Staff-only area (hidden to students, but useful for eg handover notes, structure diagrams, suggestions by colleagues for amendments/updates, ...)

Inadvertently, multiple versions of files can get uploaded.

Using the Blackboard content collection to organise, manage and archive files

• The content collection is the underlying store of files that have been uploaded. An organisation space needs to give particular attention to file management, as otherwise, over the years, multiple versions of the same file can be uploaded without realising [see screenshot example]. This is a particular issue when file sizes are large, eg if large graphics or video files are directly uploaded.
• https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Original/Course_Content/Content_Collection/Organize_and_Manage

Communication and collaboration

• Announcements: these can be set to go through directly to the student’s University email inbox
• Discussion boards, blogs, wikis: purpose, benefits, need to 'nurture' the collaboration, particularly while dialogue is not yet well established; staff/GTA/student roles
• Managing online learners: the eLearning team runs a 2-hour session on managing online learners, taking people through the Gilly Salmon '5 Stages' model.