Privacy and Personal Information for Students and Organization Participants
If the Personal Information tool is available, students and participants can make their own privacy choices on the Personal Information page, accessible from any tab in the Tools panel or under Tools in any course or organization in Blackboard Learn. On this page, students and participants can choose whether to be listed in the User Directory and choose whether to display their email address, address (street, city, state, zip, country), work information (company, job title, work phone, work fax), and any other additional contact information (home phone, mobile phone, website).
These fields and the user's name are the only personal information that is ever displayed in the User Directory, and by default they are not included in the User Directory unless the user deliberately opts-in to disclose the information. Users can exercise this option at any time, not just during a period of time specified by the institution.
When students and participants choose to make their email addresses available, whether or not they have chosen to be listed in the User Directory, their email addresses will be displayed in the roster and group pages for all of the courses and organizations in which they are enrolled.
If the student or participant has opted to include their personal information in the User Directory, those fields the user has chosen will display to other users who are logged on to the system.
Users also have the right to confirm that their personal information is correct. They can review and modify their own personal information on the Personal Information page if it has been made available.
To learn more, see the User Directory and Personal Information Disclosure topic in this section.
Blackboard REST APIs
The Blackboard REST APIs follow the personal privacy settings as outlined above for Learn. The same levels of information displayed to users through the REST APIs are accessible to them within Learn.
If your institution allows it, users can update their privacy choices on the Personal Information page to limit information exposed through the REST APIs.
Learn more about personal settings for students
Discussion board
The name of a student or participant who posts to the discussion board displays, along with the post, to all users in the course or organization or within the group (if it is a group discussion). To avoid this display of personal information, the user can choose to post to the discussion board anonymously if this option has been enabled by the instructor or leader.
The names of email recipients display on the Send Email pages. The email addresses of the recipients do not display in either the Send Email pages or in the email that the student or participant receive. All email is sent by the Blackboard system as "blind carbon copy" (BCC). This means that one user who receives the email will not see the names or email addresses of other users who receive the same message. The name and email address of the user who sent the message will be visible to all recipients when they receive the message.
Groups
The names of students or participants included in a group within a course or organization are listed on the group page, which is accessible to other users included in that same group. If the user has chosen to make their email address available, their email address is also listed on the group page.
Messages
The names of message recipients display on the Compose Message page. The name of the user who sent a message to another user is displayed to the user who receives the message.
Portfolios
Students and participants can choose to share a portfolio with a specific course or organization, in which case it is listed under course or organization portfolios and is accessible by everyone in the course or organization. The only information available in the portfolio is determined by the user. The user can choose to remove the sharing of the portfolio from the course or organization at any time.
Roster
The names of students or participants enrolled in a course or organization are listed in the roster. If users have chosen to make their email addresses available, their email addresses are also listed in the roster.
