How to Create Blackboard 5.5 Documents
Recommendation:  Either print a copy of this document or open this document in a new browser window so that you can switch between this document and the Control Panel of your course as you create a new document. With Blackboard 5.5 you can create documents to guide your students through your Internet course, such as a schedule of assignments and a course syllabus. You can also create announcements and external links. The Announcments, Staff Information, and External Links sections are the easiest to use. Follow these steps:

  1. Click on the Control Panel button on the lower left side of your screen:
    Control Panel button

  2. When you enter the Control Panel, you will see the Content Areas buttons near the top left of the screen:
    Control Panel Content Areas

  3. You will use the Announcements link to create announcements to students. The Staff Information links allows you to add information that will appear when students click on the "Staff Information" button from the course home page. The External Links area gives you the ability to create hypertext links to other Web sites without having to know any HTML code to make the link active. Prompts will appear on the screen to guide your through the steps in each of these areas.

    To create documents for the Course Information, Course Documents, or Assignments sections, follow the steps below. You can either paste text into the document area from your word processing programrequires a bit more thought. For documents in these sections, you do not have to know anything other than how to use your keyboard. However, if you want your documents to have boldfacing and numbered or bulleted lists, then you will need to read the document titled Basic HTML for Enhancing Blackboard Documents.

    Follow the steps below to create a document for the Assignments section. (The Course Information and Course Documents sections work like the Assignments section.)

  4. Click on the Assignments link:
    Control Panel Content Areas

  5. Then the Assignments editor screen will appear, as shown below. Click on the "Add Folder" button:
    Assignments Editor

  6. When the Add Folder screen appears, as shown below, the next step is to name the folder. You can choose one of the pre-assigned folder titles from the menu, or you can add your own, such as Module One, shown below:
    Add Folder

  7. You do not need to add any other information, unless you want to describe the contents of the folder in the text box above. If you choose your title well, you will not need to add a description.

  8. Your next step is to decide if you want to make the folder visible to your students immediately or if you want to wait until you have added one or more documents to the folder. You can also choose to make the document visible immediately but only after a date that you choose from the select boxes shown below:
    Submit Folder

  9. After you click on the Submit button at the bottom right of the page, you will be prompted that a new folder has been created:
    Folder Added

  10. Scroll to the bottom of the screen, click on the "OK" button, and then you are ready to create a document for your folder:
    OK

  11. The Assignments screen will appear again, indicating that the folder is empty. To create a document inside the folder, click on the "Add Item" button. Note: The "Add Learning Unit" allows you to create something like a folder that would then contains a series of assignments. You could create a folder, for example, and then add an item to introduce the learning unit. Then you could add a learning unit below the "item" (or document). Inside the learning unit, you would create a series of "items."
    Enter Folder

  12. When the "Add Content" page appears, enter a name to create a boldface heading to introduce the text or choose a name from the select box. You can even choose a color of the text. If your folder is not available, for view, you can make the contents visible but they will not be visible to students until you modify the folder and make the folder itself visible.

    Add Content

  13. You have three options for entering text in the text box: smart text, plain text, or HTML:
    • Option 1 - Smart Text: You can either paste text that you have copied from your word processing program into the text box, or you can enter text into the text box just as you would with any word processor. Press the Enter key twice at the end of each paragraph so that you will have a blank line between each single spaced paragraph. With this option, you can add HTML tags for boldfacing, and you can also add hypertext links.
    • Option 2 - Plain Text: This option works just as the "Smart Text" option does, but you cannot add any HTML tags for boldfacing or bulleted items.
    • Option 3 - HTML: With this option you can copy the source code of HTML documents and paste into the textbox to created HTML tables, sound, or any other HTML features. You can use an HTML editor such as Arachnophilia, Netscape Composer, Dreamweaver, or Microsoft FrontPage to create an HTML document. You can also use Microsoft Word and then save your Word document as a Web page. If you use either Composer or Word to compose your HTML document, the text you will see on the screen will look like any other word processing document. To use this new HTML document in Blackboard, you will need to view the HTML code for the document. You will click on View on the menu bar of Composer or Word and then click on View Page Source or "HTML Source." You will then copy and paste the code into the text box as indicated below. When you have finished entering or pasting your information, scroll down and click on the HTML radio button if you have used HTML in your document. Otherwise click on "Smart Text." Smart Text will maintain spacing between each paragraph.

  14. Next, check the appropriate buttons. If you want students to view this document, click the first option to make the document visible. Check the next option if you want Blackboard to track which of your students are using the documents you have assigned. Later you can return to the Control Panel and enter the section where you created this document. You can click on the "Tracking" icon to learn which students have viewed the document and on what date.

    Options

  15. If your students have course content available on a CD-ROM or in a music file, you should click the "add offline content" option. When you do, another series of options will appear for you to enter the name that you want to use to link to the file and the name of the file on the CD or in the music file.

  16. Finally, scroll to the bottom of your screen to click on the Submit button. You can then return to your course by clicking on the link to the course at the top of the screen, or you can click the "OK" button at the bottom of your screen to continue editing your document.