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Adding an Item

In Blackboard, an Item represents any form of content (e.g., Word documents, PDF files, JPG files) that you may want to add to your course. An item is most often added to the Course Documents section, but may be in other Content Areas as well. For the following example, we'll add a Word document containing the class syllabus to the Course Documents section.

Edit the Course Documents page

1. Open the Control Panel and click Course Documents, or click Course Documents on the menu on the left and then click Edit View in the upper right corner.

2. Click the Item button.

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3. The Add Item options will open. Add the name of the item and a short description.

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4. Under the Content heading, click Browse... and locate the file on your computer that you want to post. If you're ready to make this item available to students, choose Yes next to Make the content available. Otherwise, choose a date for the content to become available. Click the Submit button.

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Adding a Folder

Folders can help organize multiple items and links. For this example, we'll add a folder to the Course Documents section.

Creating a Folder

  1. Open the Control Panel and click Course Documents, or click Course Documents on the menu on the left and then click Edit View in the upper right corner.
  2. Click the Folder button. The Add Folder page will appear. Add a name for the folder and a text description.

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  3. Choose whether or not you want to make the folder available, and click Submit. TIP: Choose to make an entire Folder unavailable to upload large amounts of content. The content will remain hidden from students until the folder has been set back to "available".

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Adding content to a Folder

Blackboard folders create empty pages for adding content. Create a folder first, and then add content to that folder (see Adding an Item, Creating an Assignment, etc.). You can also reorganize and move content that's already been created to a folder.

  1. For the following example, a folder named "Week 1" has been created. We want to copy items, links, wikis and other content into the Week 1 folder. Clicking the Copy button next to any Blackboard element will allow it to be copied to another location (for our purposes, this folder).

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  3. Click Copy next to an item that you want to copy into a folder.

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  5. The Copy or Move Item page appears. Leave the Destination Course the same (note: this is for copying single pieces of content between your courses) and click Browse... next to Destination Folder. A box will pop up. Select first the section (in this case Course Documents) and then the folder (in this case "Week 1"). Find the folder you want to copy this content into and click on the folder name. The box will disappear and the Destination Folder now shows the intended destination for this item.
  6. To completely move this item into the folder, change Remove item after copy to Yes. Click Submit.

Adding an External Link

In Blackboard, an External Link provides a way to add a link to any external website outside of Blackboard. An External Link is most often added to the External Links section of a Blackboard course, but may be added to other sections as well. For the following example, we'll add an External Link to Google (http://www.google.com) to the Course Documents section.

  1. Edit the Course Documents page. Open the Control Panel and click Course Documents, or click Course Documents on the menu on the left and then click Edit View in the upper right corner.

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  3. Click the External Link button. The Add External Link options will appear.

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  5. Add a name for the link, the URL (web address) and any text that may help explain what the link is.

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  7. To open the new link within Blackboard choose No next to Open in a new window. Choose Yes to launch a new window when the link is clicked. Click Submit.

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  9. After the link has been created, return to the Content Area where you added the link and test it.

Adding a link to an article from the Duke Library

In order for students to access library content off-campus, students need to use either VPN software or “EZPRoxy” to establish their Duke affiliation via NetID. The Library System recommends use of EZProxy; therefore, our documentation will demonstrate this approach.

1. For the following directions, you'll need to find the Permanent URL (also called a Stable URL) for the article. Please see this Library guide for more information.
2. Open a Content Area, such as Course Documents, from the Control Panel.Click External Link.

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    3. Fill in the following fields:
    • Name (required): a meaningful name for the web link. The name will be clickable to the web site.
    • URL (required): when entering or copying and pasting a URL, always use the full web address, for example, http://cit.duke.edu , not cit.duke.edu. Paste the permanent URL to the library resource here.
    • Paste the required EZProxy code ( http://proxy.lib.duke.edu:2048/login?url=) BEFORE the permanent URL. **The total number of characters for the URL must be less than 250.**
    • Text (optional field to describe the web link).
    4. Click Submit.

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