Appropriate Use
Blackboard is intended to support the teaching, learning and scholarship of Duke University faculty, staff and students. Duke University faculty and staff may use Blackboard for:- courses they teach (including courses in which non-Duke students are enrolled)
- committees engaged in scholarly endeavors
- scholarly groups of which they are a member
- non-profit, educational community groups (e.g. health education sites offered for free to members of the surrounding community)
Access to Blackboard
Access to Bb software, materials, and affiliated online tools will be granted as follows:
Access to Blackboard:
All Duke students and faculty are automatically given Bb accounts. Duke staff are not automatically provided accounts but can get one by contacting the OIT Help Desk for assistance. Non-Duke personnel who have a legitimate need to access a Duke Bb site because they are participating in a Duke-sponsoring activity or course, and are authorized by a Duke faculty, staff or student who has the role of "instructor" in a course site or "leader" in an organization site, may be given a Bb account. These accounts are created by the OIT Help Desk. Guests may access Duke"s Bb installation by logging in as guest/guest (or using their usual Bb login), and will be able to view guest-accessible portions of courses and organizations. Access other than the above is not allowed.
Bb user account and password:
All persons affiliated with Duke will use their Duke NetID (formerly ACPUB ID) and password to access Bb. Non-Duke persons will have a Bb ID created in the form firstname.lastname, using a password communicated to the person via a secure method. Duke persons may change their Net ID passwords by going to http://www.duke.edu/online. Non-Duke persons may change their Bb ID passwords by contacting the OIT Help Desk.
Guests:
Bb will allow an individual not enrolled in a particular course or organization (known as a "guest") to gain access to specific areas of course sites, not including course rosters, user tools (e.g., user directory), or communication tools. In addition there is a system-level guest account ("guest/guest"). Course and organization sites in Bb are created unavailable to guests by default. Course sites may, at the discretion of the instructor, be made entirely or partially available to guests.
Student access:
Students who are registered for classes with a Bb course site will be automatically added to that course site by the Bb system administrator when the site is created, or when registration data become available to the Bb administrators, whichever is later. The course sites are not available to students when created, however, and making them so is at the discretion of the course instructor. Instructors may provide full access to their course site(s) to currently enrolled Duke students who are not yet registered for the course (for example, those serving as TAs or auditing a course), by adding those students to the course site manually.
Bb course enrollment management:
Students registered for a class through the university Registrar's Office will be enrolled in the corresponding Bb course site when the site is created or as soon as possible thereafter. Through the end of the add/drop period at the beginning of the semester, both the officially registered students and those on the Registrar's wait list are enrolled in the course site. As students add courses during the add/drop period, they will be automatically added to the appropriate Bb rosters, typically within 4-8 hours. Students who drop courses will have their enrollment within the Bb site "disabled" to prevent unauthorized access to course materials. At the end of the add/drop period, students still on the waitlist but not officially registered for the course will have their enrollments in the Bb course site disabled.
User roles:
Available user roles include Student, Instructor, Teacher’s Assistant, Grader, Course Builder, and Guest. –see the change a user's role webpage for details, and the Undergrad TA best practices.
Length of Access to Course Site:
Student access to course materials is at the discretion of the course instructor(s) or programs. At the end of a given semester, instructors are encouraged to make their course sites unavailable to students, in the reverse of the process they used to make the courses available at the start of the semester.
Communications and technical administration of Blackboard
Planned outages:
Bb planned outages will take place during the standing Bb outage window (Sundays 1-6 am) whenever possible. Planned outages will be announced 1 week or more in advance in most circumstances. Outages will be announced in several places: Bb main page (academic portal page), Bb system info module (for logged-in users), and the OIT Service Updates page. Planned outages will not be posted on the student portal page.
Unplanned/emergency outages:
Bb unplanned or emergency outages will be posted on the places listed above (if possible) as well as on the student portal page.
System administrator access to Bb sites:
Bb system administrators may access Bb sites to solve technical support tickets or in response to help queries from faculty, and may temporarily add a test account (student or other role) to help troubleshoot. System administrators may access sites as part of system testing and maintenance with no advance permission from instructors. System administrators will not extract data about system usage for faculty or students, except when deemed necessary to troubleshoot a system problem. Any information or data discovered about a course site or user during the course of system testing or investigations will not be shared with any other faculty or user.
Course Management
Sites on the Bb server are managed with the goals of reducing faculty time and effort needed to build their sites, allowing student access to courses as determined necessary by faculty, and improving server performance by removing older and unused course materials.
Archiving courses:
At the end of each semester, each faculty member wishing to retain an archival copy of their course site and student work therein, should use the Bb course archive tool accessible from the control panel of their course site to create and download a course archive (.zip) file and retain that in a file storage space accessible to them. If this archive needs to be restored to the Bb system at a later time, the faculty member can contact the OIT Help Desk. Faculty should also keep an export of the gradebook (if used) separately for quick reference in the event of a grade dispute.
Course size limitations:
At this time, there is no limitation on the size of course sites. CIT will work with faculty to provide advice and assistance to help them compress files in order to utilize space as efficiently as possible.
File size limitations:
At this time there is a 100 MB per file limit for uploads into Bb. The rationale for this limit relates to improving server performance and reducing file storage needs for all users.
Restore of course archives:
If a course archive file from an instructor needs to be restored into Bb, this will be done only at the request of the original instructor who created/offered it (usually the instructor of record), or from program directors in cases where such staff are authorized by the Dean to make decisions about Blackboard courses for the program. An exception to this would be if CIT received permission from the original instructor to make the archived course materials available to another instructor/staff member.
Transferring course sites:
Instructors who wish to use the course site developed by another instructor need to receive written permission from the original instructor first, and forward that permission to CIT.
Requesting a Bb course site:
Any faculty or instructional staff member may request that a Bb course site be established for their use, using the online course request form. If someone other than the instructor is requesting the course site, the instructor must be included in the request or written permission from the instructor must be received to complete the course request.
Gradebook information:
The Bb online gradebook is a tool designed for the convenience of students and faculty. Thus, it is not an official record of student grades, nor should it be considered a legally binding record of student scores. Faculty are strongly encouraged to periodically print out a copy of the online gradebook, and to print a final copy for their records after the semester ends. In addition, faculty are strongly encouraged to post student grades in Bb only in the secure Bb gradebook. Final grades are to be entered into the student information system (PeopleSoft) as the gradebook of record.
Information Security
The Bb user database is fed directly from the Duke enterprise directory system, thus allowing users to login with an already-familiar username and password. The security of these systems is of paramount importance in maintaining a reliable and trusted resource for virtually available instructional materials and tools.
Controlling access to student information:
As with other university records, faculty are cautioned to take care that student information (including, but not limited to, grades, test scores, usernames, or ID numbers) be closely guarded. As noted in the gradebook information section above, grades should not be posted so that students may see scores belonging to other class members (for example, do not post grades in a spreadsheet uploaded to the course site).
Privacy settings:
Privacy settings from the enterprise directory are brought into Bb. Duke users wishing to change their privacy flags should do so in the enterprise directory.
E-mail address display:
All Bb users have the option to disable the display of their e-mail address within Bb. (Due to system design, the one exception to this is the discussion forum areas, where the user's e-mail address will appear unless messages are posted anonymously).
Copyright and Fair Use
Posting copyrighted materials:
Copyright law and Fair Use Guidelines allow faculty to provide access to copyrighted materials using the Bb system, as long as the guidelines are followed and copyrighted materials are accessible only to enrolled members of the course. Instructors are advised to consider the use of Duke Library's e-reserves system to avoid infringement. Documents hosted on Perkins e-reserves are automatically linked to Bb.
Linking to external sites from Bb:
The Bb software provides an easy-to-use interface for integrating links to other websites into course materials. Instructors are encouraged to link to other sites, rather than attempting to integrate the desired materials directly into the Bb course site. This alleviates copyright concerns and also retains the integrity of the materials (and associated links) in their original environment. It is the responsibility of the instructor to confirm that links from Bb to external sites are viable.
Linking to Bb from external sites:
It is possible to link to a Bb course site directly from websites external to Bb. Users may, however, be prompted to log in when they first attempt such access.
Intellectual Property
System management data:
Information regarding Bb system performance or usage is considered the property of the Duke University. Information regarding specific Bb sites or individual accounts will be held in confidence, although data may be gathered and presented in aggregated form by university staff members (e.g., CIT, OIT, Library, etc.) for professional development activities, such as conference presentations and/or scholarly/industry publication, as well as for reporting on system performance or use.
Computing Policies
Use of Blackboard sites, by both students and faculty, are governed by the Office of Information Technology’s Computer Policies and Guidelines, which include:
- Computing and Networking: Acceptable Use -- appropriately access only the information for which you are authorized
- Group E-Mail Policy -- the Blackboard e-mail tool should be used only for course-related communication
Blackboard Course Site Retention Policy
Purpose of Policy
To define how long a course site will be retained in the centrally managed Blackboard Learning Management system before it is deleted.
Policy Summary
Blackboard course sites will be retained for four years and then deleted. Instructors will have an option to retain older courses if they wish. This policy is effective starting with Fall 2007 Blackboard course sites and later. Blackboard course sites created Summer 2007 and earlier will be retained until further notice.
Examples. A Blackboard course site created Fall 2007 term will be deleted after Fall 2011. A Blackboard course site created for Spring 2008 will be deleted after Spring 2012. And so forth.
Please visit the full version of the Blackboard Course Site Retention Policy.