This page contains descriptions and instructions for using Blackboard's most common features.
Course Content and Navigation
Discussion Board
Email - Forward your UAA Email
Email - Send email within your Blackboard course
File Types - Common Document Formats in Blackboard
Digital Drop Box
View Grades
Course Content and Navigation
Your course in Blackboard contains all the content and tools for the course that have been enabled by your instructor and the system administrator. The course areas you can access appear in the course menu in the frame on the left of all course pages. The appearence of your course may differ from the standard setup shown below.
| Announcements | Course updates, reminders, general announcements are displayed here. The announcement area is usually the first page you see when you enter your Blackboard course. |
| Course Information | General information about the course - the syllabus is typically placed here. |
| Staff Information | Instructor and staff information (e.g., contact info, office hours, personal web site) is posted in this area. |
| Course Documents | Course outlines, handouts, lecture materials, and readings are usually posted here. The syllabus may also be posted here. |
| Assignments | Assignments and assessments (i.e., quizzes & surveys) are typically located in this section. |
| Communication | Send Email, Discussion Board, Virtual Classroom, Roster, and Group Pages are linked to from here. |
| External Links | Links to web sites that are related to the course are provided in this area. |
| Tools | Digital Drop Box, Edit Your Homepage, Personal Information, Calendar, Check Grade, Manual, Tasks, Electric Blackboard, and Address Book are linked to from here. Can also be labeled Tools or User Tools. |
| Course Map | A site map of the course contents |
| |
Discussion Board
The Discussion Board is a forum for communication comprised of a topic and threads of replies from your classmates and instructor.
1. Enter the Discussion Board section of your course.
2. Click on the forum title, read the description if one is provided.
3. Click on any underlined link to view the text of the discussion.
4. Click the Reply button to open a text editor window and compose your reply.
5. Click Submit when ready to post.
Location of Discussion Board
Look for a button called Discussion Board in your course navigation bard, or find it under Communication > Discussion Boards
For a more detailed explanation of Discussion Boards please see Discussion Board Forums from the Blackboard User Manual.
Email - Forward your UAA Email
All email from Blackboard is sent to your UAA Email Address. If you have another email address you can set a forward on your UAA email.
1. Login to your UAA computer account at
2. Type your preferred email address in the field titled "Forward UAA Mail to this address"
3. Click Update
4. Logout
Important Note - After you have set a forward on your UAA email account your UAA email messages will be forwarded. Messages will no longer arrive in your UAA email inbox after you have set a forward on your UAA email account.
Email - Send email within your Blackboard course
You can send an email to your course instructor or classmates. Email will be sent to the persons UAA email address.
Step 1 Open a Course.
Step 2 Click Communication on the Course Menu.
Step 3 Click Send Email .
The Send Email tool allows you to send a message to anyone in your course. It does not save sent messages or provide a spell check.
File Types - Common Document Formats in Blackboard
Your course in Blackboard may have several different types of documents and files such as Word (.doc) and Adobe (.pdf). For many courses you will only need Microsoft Word and . If your course contains other types of documents and files the computer you are using will need to have the appropriate software and plugins to view the files.
You can determine which type of file you are working with by looking at the file extension (the .doc part of My UAA Screen in Blackboard 6.doc , for example).
| Example document formats: |
| Microsoft Word documents (.doc) |
| PowerPoint presentations (.ppt, .pps) |
| Excel spreadsheets and charts (.xls) |
| Adobe Acrobat documents (.pdf) |
| Graphics (.jpg, .gif) |
| Video clips (.mov) |
| HTML files (.htm or .html) |
Digital Drop Box
The Digital Drop Box is a tool within Blackboard that's specially designed to allow students to send documents to their instructors and instructors to send documents to their students. Your instructor will announce if they are using the course Digital Drop Box to receive your homework.
To access the Digital Drop Box go to Tools, Digital Drop Box.
There are two ways to use Digital Drop Box.
- To store files in your student digital drop box for the course use the Add File button. You can use this area to store documents you have not yet completed, for example.
- To send files to your instructor use the Send File button. For example, you can submit homework you have typed and saved as an MS Word document (.doc) using the Send File button.
Fig. 1 - Sending a file to your instructor using Digital Drop Box
- Select the file you wish to send to your instructor (this drop down box lists the files you have added to your digital drop box), or, if the file isn't already in your drop box, use the Browse function to locate a file on your computer or portable media and double click on that file.
- Insert a Title for this document
- Type in any additional comments.
- Click the SUBMIT button in the lower right hand corner to send that file to your instructor.
Always keep the original copy of the documents you upload to Blackboard.
Blackboard retains a record of posted (i.e., added to personal dropbox) and submitted (i.e., sent) files.Files include a time stamp in addition to a date stamp.
View Grades
If your instructor uses this feature you can view your grades for assignments, quizzes and exams.
1. Open a Course.
2. Click Tools on the Course Menu.
3. Select View Grades .
