Course Settings allows you to customize your course to suit your needs and those of your students. Course Settings appears at the top right corner of an Ultra course if the user has privileges to view or manage settings.

View of top portion of a Blackboard Ultra course titled Introduction to Technical Writing, which has a colorful course banner ranging from blue to orange. The Course Settings option at the top right of the screen is highlighted in blue.

Settings include:

Course Access

If you have the appropriate privileges from your institution's Blackboard administrator, you can control a number of areas relating to your course's access to students.

Manage Course Duration

Course Duration defines the time in which students may interact with a course. Students are always allowed to access some courses. Other courses have restrictions so students can only access them for a specific time. This is determined by Course Duration settings. 
In addition to system administrators, you (or any user with the correct privileges, such as teaching assistants), can modify the course duration settings for your Ultra courses.
Select Course Settings at the top right corner of your Ultra course. The Course Duration settings appear as a drop-down menu that contains these settings: 

  • Ongoing. No restriction to access.
  • Restrict by dates. Set dates and times for student access to begin, end, or both.
  • Restrict by number of days from enrollment. Select the number of days after enrollment in which a student is no longer able to access a course.
  • Restricted by the start and end dates of the associated term. This option only appears when a term is defined for the course.

Students can't access closed courses regardless of the course duration. Closed courses don't appear in the Course Catalog.

Manage Course Access

You can manage course access state settings through the Course Settings page.

  • Close Course. When you select a course as closed, it continues to appear in the course listing, but students cannot access it. When Close Course is not selected, the course is open, and students can access it. This function previously was called Open/Private and found in the Details & Actions panel.
  • Complete Course. When the course is completed, students can access the content but cannot participate. Additionally, you can no longer make any changes once a course is completed.

At the top of your course, next to Course Settings, an indicator displays Open, Closed, or Complete based on the course state. Your students also see this indicator at the top of the course.

Additionally, instructors can access Course Settings from the Courses page. From the three dot menu, the instructor can select Course Settings.

Courses page with menu options appearing over a course card that show an option to go to Course Settings

Administrator note

Users must have appropriate System Role or Course Role privileges to manage Course Access.

  • Privilege to access the Course Settings panel: Course/Organization Control Panel (Customization) > Properties
  • Privilege to modify the Course Duration: Course/Organization Control Panel (Customization) > Properties, Duration
  • Privilege to close/open a course: Course/Organization Control Panel (Customization) > Properties, Availability
  • Privilege to mark a course as complete (with ability to revert the change): Change Completion Status (on/off)
  • Privilege to mark a course as complete (without ability to revert the change): Partial Change Completion Status (on)

Manage course tools

You can manage various tools using Course Settings. Whether or not you can enable or disable a tool will be determined by the institutional/node tools configuration.

Select Course Settings at the top right corner of your Ultra course. You can manage:

  • Roster tool. If your system administrator has enabled this option, you can allow students access to view the roster by selecting the toggle button. You can also manage student access to the roster visibility on the Roster page itself. If instructors are not permitted to configure settings, this option appears in view-only mode.
  • Messages tool. If your system administrator has enabled this option, you can control whether the Messages tool is visible in your course. To make it visible, select the option Allow course messages. When turned off, messages will be sent via email only. If instructors are not permitted to configure settings, this option appears in view-only mode. 

Administrator note

Users must have appropriate System Role or Course Role privileges to manage Course Tools. The Roster tool can only be managed in a course if allowed by settings in the Administrator Panel > Tools.

  • Privilege to access the Course Settings panel: Course/Organization Control Panel (Customization) > Properties
  • Privilege to modify course tools: Course/Organization Control Panel (Customization) > Tool Availability
  • For Messages: Course Messages are ON as Course and Organization tools by default. Administrators can modify the availability and Scope of Change settings by unlocking the padlock button in this setting. For more information, visit the Administrator page for Messages. 

Manage Students Visibility

Use the Students Visibility setting to hide or show unenrolled students. 

With this option turned on, students are hidden from these gradebook areas: 

  • Grades page 
  • Students page 
  • Calculation student list 
  • Gradable items student list 
  • Submission tab for an assessment 
  • Student Activity tab for an assessment 

 

Manage virtual classroom

You have the option to turn on or off student access to Class Collaborate. When you turn it off, it will not appear in the Detail & Actions area for anyone in the course. If instructors are not permitted to configure settings, this option appears in view-only mode.

For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. This setting appears only for institutions with an active Class Collaborate integration. User must have access to the Course settings panel with this privilege: Course/Organization Control Panel (Customization) > Properties and Course/Organization Control Panel (Customization) > Tool Availability Privilege for Virtual classroom section. 

Mastery Gradebook - Visibility Settings

If a system administrator has enabled Mastery tab availability at the institution-level, instructors can configure Mastery tab availability at the course-level.

The Mastery goal tab for instructors setting determines if the Mastery tab is available to instructors in their course. The Mastery goal tab for students setting determines if the Mastery tab is available to students in their course.

If the configurations for Mastery tab in Course Settings are read-only, a system administrator has turned off Mastery tab availability at the institution-level.