You can enroll instructors, students, teaching assistants, and other users individually into a course or use a batch file to enroll large groups. On this page, learn how to: 

Enroll users in a course

If you want to enroll multiple users in a course, enroll them in groups based on their course roles. You can select one role per set of users. For example, if a course has one or more instructors, enroll them first. Then, move on to students.

Optionally, you can enroll all users with a role of Student and then edit individual users to change their course roles. For example, if you want to enroll 23 students, one instructor, and one teaching assistant, you can enroll all 25 users with the role of Student. Then, edit the two users to change their roles to Instructor and Teaching Assistant.

  1. On the Administrator Panel in the Courses section, select Courses.
  2. Search for a course.
  3. On the Courses page, open the course's menu and select Enrollments.
  4. On the Enrollments page, select Enroll Users.

  5. On the Add Enrollments page, if you know the users' exact usernames, type them in the Username box separated by commas.

    If you don't know the usernames, select Browse to search for users. Select the check box for each user to enroll, then select Submit.

  1. In the Role menu, select a course role for this group of users, such as Instructor. The role selected applies to this course only. Your institution can create custom roles.
  2. Define the Enrollment Availability for this group of users. To enroll users but make the course unavailable to them, select No. To enroll users and make the course available to them immediately, select Yes. If you use the Ultra experience, you may override a user's course availability.
  3. Select Submit. Submit.

When you merge a course into a single master course, its students are enrolled automatically in the merged master course. However, when students enter the course, they'll see only the course ID of the child course they were originally enrolled in. To learn more about merging courses, see Merge and Separate Courses.

Change a user's role for a course

You can change a user's role in a course at any time. For example, if an instructor needs an additional assistant during the term, you can change a user's role from Student to Teaching Assistant for that course.

  1. On the Administrator Panel in the Courses section, select Courses.
  2. Search for a course.
  3. On the Courses page, open the course's menu and select Enrollments.
  4. On the Enrollments page, open the username's menu and select Edit.
  5. On the Edit Enrollments page, select a new role from the Role menu. The role selected applies to this course only.
  6. Select Submit.

Limit enrollments by Course Role

If your institution has instructors and support staff manually handle aspects of course membership, you can limit or restrict course roles that a user can add, edit, or remove from a course roster.

1. On the Administrator Panel in the Users section, select Course/Organization Roles.

2. Select the Course/Organization role you want to manage and select Edit from the menu.

Administrator panel to manage course enrollments by role

3. On the Course/Organization Roles page, under Limit Management of Course Enrollments, select the roles that this role (the one you are editing) can manage in a course. For example, you want the instructor role to be able to enroll Teaching Assistant, Grader, and Course Builder roles. This gives an instructor the ability to enroll, edit, or remove these support roles from a course roster.

4. Move your selected roles into the Manageable by User field.

5. Select Submit.

Instructors can now enroll others with the course roles of Teaching Assistant, Grader, or Course Builder. The instructor can also edit or remove these roles from the course if the privileges are permitted. For information on managing privileges for course and organization roles, go to Course and Organization Roles. 

You should review course role configurations, so they best align to institutional policies. Confirm the assignment of expected privileges. Set any appropriate course role restrictions for course roles with the privileges above.

There are two privileges for allowing a course user to add other enrollments:

  • Course Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Enroll User
    • Use this privilege when you want course role limits to apply.
  • Course Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Enroll User for all roles
    • Use this privilege when the user can enroll users with any course role, but you want to apply course role limits to the enrollment edit and remove privileges.

Similarly, there are now two privileges for batch enrolling users:

  • Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Batch Enroll Users
    • Use this privilege when you want course role limits to apply to batch actions.
  • Course Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Batch Enroll Users for all roles
    • Use this privilege when the user can batch enroll other users with any course role. Course role restrictions would still apply to the edit and remove privileges.

These restrictions also apply to other course role privileges for editing and deleting enrollments. When privileges with “all roles” tags are permitted, this allows the user to edit and remove all course roles with no restriction or limitation.

Editing enrollments:

  • Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Change System DSK User's availability in Course/Organization
  • Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Change System DSK User's Role in Course/Organization
  • Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Set System DSK instructor as primary in Ultra Course View
  • Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Change Non-System DSK User's availability in Course/Organization
  • Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Change Non-System DSK User's Role in Course/Organization
  • Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Set Non-System DSK instructor as primary in Ultra Course View

Deleting enrollments:

  • Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Remove System DSK Users from Course/Organization
  • Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Remove Non-System DSK Users from Course/Organization

For more information on roles and privileges, go to the Roles and Privileges page.

List the users enrolled in a course

  1. On the Administrator Panel in the Courses section, select Courses.
  2. Search for a course.
  3. On the Courses page, open the course's menu and select Enrollments. The list of enrolled users appears.
  4. From this page, you can send an email to a user by selecting the user's email address. Your default email program opens a new message addressed to this user.
  5. Access a user's menu to perform other actions:
    • Change Password. Change a user's password. Provide and verify the password, then select Submit.
    • Course Enrollments. View or edit the courses a user is enrolled in.
    • Organization Enrollments. View or edit a user's organization enrollments.

Enroll users in batch

You can enroll as many as 500 users to courses at one time with a batch file. If the batch file doesn't include a Course Role attribute for a user, Blackboard Learn assigns the default course role of Student.

More on batch file guidelines for enrollments

  1. On the Administrator Panel in the Courses section, select Courses.
  2. On the Courses page, select Enroll Users.
  3. On the Enroll Users page, select Choose File.
  4. In the File Upload box, navigate to the batch file and select Open.
  5. Select the Delimiter Type that the batch file uses. If you select Automatic, Blackboard Learn analyzes the batch file and determines the delimiter based on the frequency of the character in the file.
  6. Select Submit.

Remove users from a course

Removing users from a course doesn't delete the users from Blackboard Learn. After you remove a user from a course, the user can no longer access course materials or user interactions. The user is no longer enrolled in the course.

You can't automatically restore users to courses after you remove them. However, you can enroll users again.

  1. On the Administrator Panel in the Courses section, select Courses.
  2. Search for a course.
  3. On the Courses page, open the course's menu and select Enrollments. The list of enrolled users appears.
  4. Select the check boxes of users to delete.
  5. Select Remove Users from Course.
  6. Select Submit. 

Invite students

You can invite students to a course by email.  

  1. Go to the course's Course Content page. Select Roster under Details & Actions. 
  2. Select Invite Students at the top of the roster panel. The Invite Students panel opens.
  3. Enter a student email into the Email field. If you want to invite multiple students, separate the emails with a comma. You can send up to 50 email addresses at a time. Students will receive an invitation link in their email. Students can select Enroll Now in the email to enroll themselves into the course. 
  4. To send the invite to students, select Send at the bottom of the panel. 

When the student or students open the link from their email invite, they can log into Blackboard Learn with their credentials and be enrolled in the course. The link is not unique to each recipient in an invite with multiple recipients. The link does not expire after a set time.

Ultra: Enable Self-Enrollment

You can enable self-enrollment in Ultra courses. When enabled, instructors can copy the course URL and share it with anyone they'd like to invite to enroll. Link recipients select the link, which takes them to the self-enrollment page. From there, students can join the course.

  1. On the Administrator Panel in the Courses section, select Courses. 
  2. Search for a course. 
  3. On the Courses page, open the course's menu and select Edit.  
  4. Under Enrollment Options, select Self-Enrollment. 
  5. You have the option to control the period of time in which users can self-enroll. Add your chosen Start Date and End Date for self-enrollment in this course. If a user tries to self-enroll outside of the date range, they are not directed to the self-enrollment page. 
  6. You have the option to require an access code to enroll in the course. To enable this, select Require Access Code to Enroll. You can create an access code in the accompanying field.  

Ultra: Customize course availability

If you have students who need to access a course outside of the normal term, you can override their enrollments. They'll have access to the course until the date you set.

  1. On the Administrator Panel in the Courses section, select Courses. 
  2. Search for a course.
  3. On the Courses page, open the course's menu and select Enrollments. The list of enrolled users appears.
  4. Open the username's menu and select Edit.
  5. On the Enroll Users page, select a calendar day for Availability Override Date. This date will let the user access the course until the date you select. This option will cancel any previous enrollment date settings.

The Enroll Users page is also accessible through the Users page on the Administrator Panel. Search for a user and select Course Enrollments.

More on course enrollment

Batch File Guidelines for Enrollments
Merge Enrollments