Faculty who teach multiple sections of the same course in a given semester have the option of consolidating these course sections in Blackboard into one master course. Please review the information provided below on this process and contact the ITS Helpdesk at (815) 753-8100 or email helpdesk@niu.edu with any further questions.
Do not use the Faculty Blackboard Course Utilities to request creation of your individual course sections in Blackboard if you want a master course created for them. Instead, prior to the beginning of the semester, call the ITS Helpdesk at (815) 753-8100 or e-mail helpdesk@niu.edu to request consolidation of all your sections for a Blackboard course into one master course. A more timely turnaround for your request can be expected if you submit it early. Provide the following in your request for a master course:
Consolidated master courses must be requested before course creation is requested with the Faculty Blackboard Course Utilities. Separate requests are necessary each semester. Note: Courses with different course numbers can not be combined. However, courses with the same course number can be combined (e.g. UNIV-311 and UNIV-311H) and consolidated into a master course. The roster of students from one section can be manually enrolled into another section with a differing course number.
The first section in your consolidation list will be used as your new master course. ITS staff will utilize the shell course you designate (or create and use a blank shell course if one does not exist) to copy content into your new master course. Student rosters from the Registration and Records database will be automatically populated into the master section from all sections being consolidated. Drops and additions will be automatically maintained in the master section with daily feeds from the Registration and Records database. You will be notified by e-mail when your consolidated master course is created and ready for use. You will find that all sections and the associated shell course will appear in your Blackboard course list. You should add new content to only the master section and make only the master section available to students.
When a consolidated master course is created, each of the individual sections is also created and the rosters are filled by the R&R database. Typically, a Faculty Member only makes the master course available and leaves the other sections unavailable so the students only see the master course. The usual procedure at this time is to designate the first section as the master. The roster of that course is populated with the students from all the sections that have been associated with it.
We do have the option when creating a master course to create an entirely new master section rather than using the first section as the master. If we did that in your case, each individual section, including the first one, could still be used by the TAs to identify their students. The individual sections could also be made available to students for discussion with their section. An alternative option would be to set up groups within the master course based on the section they are in. A gradebook item could also be set in the master gradebook to identify which section a student came from.
Faculty who intend to import cartridge materials into a master course, should specify a shell to be matched that is completely empty. Once the master course has been created, the cartridge materials should be imported before any other materials are added to the master course. Otherwise, the cartridge import is very likely to fail.
When the upcoming semester starts, you only need to make the master section available, not the other sections. You can just ignore the other sections in your course list. The enrollment for all 4 sections should show up in the master course roster and be updated automatically by R&R when there are add/drops. Once you set it to be available, all the students in the roster will see the master course.
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Are you looking for more information related to getting started teaching with Blackboard? Review the answers to frequently asked questions asked by NIU faculty and staff regarding getting started teaching with Blackboard. Also, consider attending an upcoming Blackboard workshop.
Last Updated: 05/09/2008