Course Settings
- Sturdy Knight
Instructors and TAs can use the course settings to manage student course access, and customize permissions for certain student information and communication tools within the course.
Course settings can be accessed by clicking the gear icon 
Course Access
The first section of the course settings panel is where instructors can open or close their course to students. Newly-created courses are closed by default and must be made available to students in this panel before they can access any of the course materials in Blackboard.
The course duration dates define the window during which a course can be opened to students and will appear as “current” in the Blackboard course list for all enrolled users. Default course duration dates are based on the semester, and run from 4 weeks prior to the start of classes to ~6 weeks after the end of final exams.
Instructors can edit their course duration dates, but unless there is a specific reason that the course should not adhere to the default semester schedule, this is not recommended.
When the Close Course selector is ON, the course is locked. Enrolled students can see the course tile in their Blackboard course list, but cannot open it or access any content. When you are ready to open your course, switch the Close Course selector to OFF to make it available to students.
The Complete Course selector sets a course to ‘read only’ status. Students can still open the course and view or copy their coursework, discussion posts, grades & feedback, etc, but cannot add or change anything. This setting is intended for use after the semester ends and final grades have been submitted, to allow students time to save any course materials they want to preserve before the course duration expires.
For more information, see the full Answers page about course availability and start/end dates.
Course Tools
The second section of the course settings panel allows instructors to manage student-to-student communication options within the course.
The Class Roster selector is ON by default, allowing students to see the full class roster in the Details & Actions menu on the right side of the course content area. Students can only see the names of other course members and no other roster information. Set this selector to OFF to hide the course roster from students entirely. All other user roles will still be able to access the roster.
The Messages options can be used to control how students can use the course message tools. By default, any member of a course can message any other member(s). Course messages cannot be turned off entirely, but you can choose to restrict students from messaging each other outside their assigned groups, or prevent student-to-student messaging entirely and restrict the tool to non-student users.
Additional Course Settings
The last three sections in the course settings panel are inactive or rarely-used features.
Virtual Classroom [Deactivated]
This setting controlled access to the defunct Class Collaborate videoconferencing tool. Class Collaborate was discontinued by Blackboard as of June 2024 and is no longer available. This setting should be left inactive.
Students Visibility
This setting is meant to hide students who have dropped the course in the roster and gradebook. Due to the way enrollment changes are transmitted from the registrar into our SU Blackboard environment, this setting is redundant.
Note: Withdrawn (W) and Incomplete (I) are grading statuses, not enrollment statuses. Students with a (W) or (I) retain Blackboard course access and cannot be removed from the course roster/gradebook, but see the customize overall grade notation feature for an alternative solution.
Mastery Gradebook - Visibility Settings
This setting controls the visibility of the Achievements feature in the course navigation menu. As of the 2024-2025 academic year, achievements are not enabled in the SU Blackboard environment, and this setting is locked off and cannot be changed by individual instructors. For alternative solutions to automating achievement feedback using release conditions, contact OLS directly through help@syr.edu to request a consultation.
