Blackboard Policies and Procedures
at Philadelphia University
Last Updated: March 19, 2008

Use of Blackboard
Blackboard is used to support academics at Philadelphia University.

Users who have ideas for using Blackboard in areas that do not directly support academic endeavors should consult with Mark Clauburg, Instructional Design Specialist.

Course Creation
Courses are created in Blackboard by Faculty request. Faculty who would like to use Blackboard to support their teaching are asked to complete the Blackboard Course Request Form located at http://www.philau.edu/ITS/bbreq.htm. Requests are typically fulfilled in one to two business days.

• Reusing Material from a Previous Semester
  Faculty who wish to reuse material from a previous semester are asked to indicate the Course ID and Semester in the Course Import section of the Blackboard Course Request Form. Course material that is more than 3 semesters old is not stored on the Blackboard server and therefore, the faculty member will be asked to submit an archived copy of their course prior to course creation.
  
• Using One Blackboard Course Page for Multiple Sections
  If a faculty member is teaching more than one section of a course, but would like only one Blackboard site, please indicate this in the Special Instructions/Requests section of the Blackboard Course Request Form.

Student Enrollment
Students are enrolled into Blackboard courses using registration information from Datatel. Students will be enrolled four (4) times at the beginning of a semester. Typically these four times are one week before classes start, the day before classes start, the end of the first week of classes, and the end of the second week of classes. This schedule is slightly altered during Summer Sessions to compensate for the shorter term.

If a student adds your course between or after student enrollments, the faculty member should enroll the student manually. If a student drops the course at any time, the faculty member should unenroll the stduent manually.

If a faculty member attempts to enroll a student and can not find that student in the database, s/he first check to make sure the student isn't already enrolled in the course (Control Panel > List/Modify Students). If the student is not enrolled and is not in the database, s/he should contact the OIT Help Desk (helpdesk@philau.edu, 215-951-4648).

Course Management
Courses will be kept on the Blackboard server for approximately three semesters (semesters are defined as Fall, Spring, Summer). Approximately six weeks into a given semester, any courses from three semesters back will be removed from the server (e.g., in October 2004 all Fall 2003 courses are removed). A reminder will be sent to all Blackboard instructors prior to the removal and faculty will be encouraged to make an archived copy, if they do not already have one, for future reference and use.

At the end of each semester, Blackboard instructors will be sent an e-mail reminding and encouraging them to export a copy of the Blackboard gradebook and to make an archived copy of their course.

Approximately ten days after the last day of Final Exams, all courses from that semester will become unavailable to students. If students need continued access to a course beyond the ten days (e.g., incompletes, course runs outside the typical semester dates), the instructor may manually make the course available to them. It is expected that the instructor will manually make the course unavailable at the completion of the extended availability.

Problems with Blackboard

If you encounter problems with Blackboard, please fill out the Blackboard Assistance Request Form at http://www.philau.edu/ITS/bbhelp.htm.

Alternatively, you can contact the OIT Help Desk (helpdesk@philau.edu, 215-951-4648) or the Instructional Design Specialist (clauburgm@philau.edu, 215-951-6332).