Course Setup Checklist

This page guides instructors through setting up the essential features of their Blackboard Ultra course. It is designed to encourage best practices for course setup that can save you work later in the semester.

1 Course Organization
2 Create Content
3 Gradebook Setup
4 Course Communication
5 Item visibility
6 Opening Your Course

Working from your syllabus during the course creation process will help ensure that your course is fully set up and organized effectively.

Step 1

Course Organization

Blackboard Ultra courses have a single course content page where all course materials are organized using modules, folders, and multimedia documents that users click to expand. Please visit Ultra Course - Navigation for more details.

Modules and Folders are the two main ways instructors can group course material. It's helpful to determine your course structure and create the folders or modules you need for the content before you begin creating/copying course materials. Our course structure gallery has examples of approaches you can take. If you are using modules, you can take advantage of the AI module generator to help create them quickly.

Click here to see comparison of features and how to add folders/modules to your course.

Modules and Folders Comparison

Modules	Folder
Exists only as a "Top Level" item	Exist as a "Top Level" item or can exist within another folder or module.
Ability to force the sequence of items within the module. (Not required. Modules can exist without forced sequence, as well.)	N/A
Ability to add a banner image.	N/A
Progress tracking ability: Students are alerted to which items are still in need of viewing/completing; Instructors can view students' progress with course items.	Progress tracking ability: Students are alerted to which items are still in need of viewing/completing; Instructors can view students' progress with course items.
Advanced module navigation will be available (coming soon.)	N/A

Steps:

Make a decision about your top-level organization. See the table for a comparison of modules and folders.
Click on the plus sign
Click module or folder from the slide out menu
Title the module or folder and adjust additional settings if necessary.

Step 2

Create Content

Once your course organization is in place, click to expand the folder/module and display the plus sign within to create content inside it. The allows you to create new content, like a Document or Assignment, or copy content from a prior course into the module or folder.

Click here for a visual of how to add content in a folder/module.

If you use weighted categories for grading students, it is important to properly categorize your any assessments you create. Each course includes a default set of categories you can use, or you can create custom categories in the Gradebook. See Gradebook Settings for more information before proceeding.

Create Items

Steps:

Select the plus sign within the folder/module you wish to create content.
Choose the "Create" option to add items such as content items, links, and assessment items . Create content by selecting an option from the slide out menu.
Choose the "Content market" for items such as Kaltura, PlayPosit, Turnitin, and Zoom, as well as links for major e-textbook publishers such as McGraw Hill or Pearson. /wiki/spaces/blackboard01/pages/154390821

If you will apply grades to items where grading is optional, like Journals and Discussions, they should be set as graded immediately upon creation. If you plan to create Group Assignments or Discussions, we recommend creating these group sets prior to creating the items so that you can apply the groups as you build. There is additional information available about Groups and Group Assignments & Discussions elsewhere in Answers.

Copy content

Note to Instructors previous using Blackboard Original courses:

Content is copied in reverse fashion from the way it was done in Original courses.

To Copy Content:

Enter the destination course — the new course where you want the content to appear.
Select the "Copy Content" option (either within the "Add Content" options or the options menu via the ellipse icon).
Search for course that contains the content you wish to copy.
Check the box to select content that Is to be copied. Entire courses or individual items can be copied into your course. For transfering content from Original to Ultra, we recommend moving the content in small batches and verifying it as you go.
You can search for additional courses if you wish to copying in content from multiple courses at the same time.

For more ideas and information about course content, visit our creating content and /wiki/spaces/blackboard01/pages/154384915 pages.