Prepare your Blackboard unit

After your LMS (Moodle) unit material has been migrated to Blackboard, and you have checked all your content and activities, you will need to think about your design.

Here are the initial steps you can take to improve your unit:

1. Decide on your unit structure in the side menu

2. Edit your migrated content

3. Decide on your landing page

4. Review your unit in Student Preview

1. Decide on your unit structure in the side menu

Currently all your materials are sitting under a single Content area. This is linked at the bottom of the Course menu.

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These are the minimum steps you will need to take to structure your unit better:

a. Click the contextual menu next to the Content area that is named with your unit code.

b. Select ‘Rename Link’.

c. Rename the link by typing in ‘Unit Content’ and clicking the green tick.

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d. Move the ‘Unit Content’ folder up under Information by dragging and dropping.

e. Remember to hide any Content Areas that you are not using (e.g. Groups). Note: empty Content Areas will automatically be hidden from students.

f. Before you show the Tools Content Area to students, click ‘Hide Link’ for any tools that you won’t be using.

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g. Add Announcements by first clicking the + icon and selecting Tool Link

h. Enter the name “Announcements”, select Announcements as the Type and click the checkbox to make ‘Available to Users’. Then click Submit.

i. Move the Announcements link to the top of the menu by dragging and dropping (same as step 1. d.).

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2. Edit your migrated content

Your migrated materials from LMS (Moodle) – now in a Content Area that you have renamed to ‘Unit Content’ – will need to be reviewed.

Each topic is now in a Content Folder. Click on the folder title to view the content contained inside.

To change any item you will need to use the contextual menu next to the item:

Some tasks you may need to do:

a. Change the name of a folder by clicking on the contextual menu and selecting ‘Edit’.

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b. Delete a folder by clicking on the contextual menu and selecting ‘Delete’.

c. Move items in a Content Folder by clicking on the contextual menu and selecting ‘Move’.

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d. Check and edit the settings of activities, such as Assignment or Discussion Board,

by clicking the contextual menu and selecting ‘Edit’.

e. Any Web Link in your unit will need to be edited so that students don’t get an error

message. Click on the contextual menu and select ‘Edit’.

f. Ensure that ‘Open in New Window’ is selected and click

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NOTE: The Content Collection houses all your unit files, and can be useful for re-using and re-linking content (in this unit and between other units). It is a good idea to organise this folder consistently with your unit structure. To find out more, go to https://help.blackboard.com/en-us/Learn/9.1_2014_04/Instructor/140_Content_Collection

3. Decide on your landing page

To start with, you may want to make the Announcements the first page students encounter when they enter your unit. To do this, the steps are:

a. Under Unit Management, click Customisation, and then select Teaching Style.

b. Under ‘Select Unit Entry Point’, change the Entry Point to ‘Announcements’.

c. Click

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4. Review your unit in Student Preview

It is always a good idea to review how your unit looks to students. The Student Preview in Blackboard is very effective.

a. Click in the top right-hand corner of your unit.

b. When you are done, click where you will be given some options to choose from.

These are just some suggestions to get you started. To find out more, including information about the new Tools you can add to your unit, please refer to the Blackboard Learning Resources unit in LMS.

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