Build Awareness and Drive Adoption for Blackboard Assist

The resources below have been created for you to use in communicating with your instructors, students, and staff. Feel free to repurpose and modify these resources in your efforts to build interest and awareness of  Assist.

The linked resources are available in English only.

Why Blackboard Assist?

Blackboard Assist enables institutions to connect learners with the support services they need to thrive. For learners, it offers one central hub within Blackboard Learn where they can easily find and access trusted support services any time and anywhere they need them. 

What is Blackboard Assist?

Blackboard Assist is a feature within Blackboard Learn* that enables you to offer one central hub that connects students to trusted support services. You can elect to include your institution's support services as well as Blackboard-powered support services and Blackboard Assist-offered 3rd party resources. The goal is to give students simple and anytime access to resources that will help them flourish inside and outside the classroom.

All Higher Education clients on the SaaS deployment of Blackboard Learn (both the Ultra Base Navigation and Original Navigation) have access to Assist.

Learn more about Blackboard Assist.

Watch a video about Blackboard Assist

The following narrated video provides a visual and auditory representation of some of the information included on this page. For a detailed description of what is portrayed in the video, open the video on YouTube, navigate to More actions, and select Open transcript.


Video: Introducing Blackboard Assist

Ready to get started?

First, determine which of your institution's services you'd like to include. You can use the guide below to compile information on the institutional services you've selected.

Second, determine which Blackboard Assist-offered services you'd like to include. See below for a complete list of Blackboard Assist-offered services. 

Ready to let people know about Blackboard Assist?

If so, here are a variety of tools that will make this communication simpler.

Communication checklist

Building a communication plan from the ground up takes time. That's why we've developed a checklist to help you take advantage of multiple channels. You can download and customize this checklist to fit your needs.

Social Media Toolkit

Promoting Blackboard Assist on social media is a great way to showcase your service listings and promote the tool to your students. We have included a social toolkit with prepopulated posts from Blackboard and our North American partners as well as social tiles. You can download and customize this toolkit to fit your needs.

Email templates

A customizable email template to share information to faculty and staff about the new Blackboard Assist feature.

A customizable email template to build excitement and share specific information about the new Blackboard Assist feature.

Announcement in Blackboard Learn

Use the announcements tool to let students know Blackboard Assist is available to them. Here’s an example written for students:

Check out this new feature—Blackboard Assist—now in Blackboard Learn. Blackboard Assist offers you one central hub to find and access the online and on-campus support services geared to set you up for success. Click on the link in the left-hand navigation to try out the listed services to find those that best suit your needs.

More on announcements

Communication resources for web & distribution

You don't need to create everything from scratch. These datasheet,  social tiles, and headers / footers can easily be used on your institutional web properties or distributed to generate excitement about the latest Blackboard Assist release.

Looking for more information on the services offered through Assist?

Below is a list of the services currently offered through Blackboard Assist along with their description and sample media posts you could use to promote these student services on your social media channels.

Service Name Description Sample Social Media Posts

Blackboard Ally File Transformer 

 

With this tool, students can convert digital content into the alternative format that best suits their learning preference. They can convert course documents and other files into semantic HTML, electronic braille, ePub, audio, and much more.

For more information, see the:

Finding it hard to study on your commute? Try using Blackboard's Ally File Transformer. This free resource will convert your content into a range of alternative formats--like a pdf to an audio file. Try converting one of your  documents today. Now available in the Assist feature in Blackboard Learn. #BlackboardAssist

Use the free Blackboard Ally File Transformer to convert scanned PDFs into searchable electronic documents that will work better with screen readers, assistive technologies, and study tools. Now available in the Assist feature in Blackboard Learn. #BlackboardAssist

Want to make your course files more accessible? Try the free Blackboard Ally File Transformer  that's now available within the Assist feature of Blackboard Learn. #Blackboard Assist
GetVaxxed!

Make it easy for your students to get vaccinated. Connect your students to this trusted site--www.vaccines.gov--that discussed the facts about getting vaccinated and makes finding the vaccine quick and simple. 

Need to get vaccinated? Looking for trusted vaccine information? Check out Get Vaxxed! in the Assist feature of Blackboard Learn. Here you can find a vaccine location nearby and get trusted answers to your most pressing questions about the COVID-19 vaccine. #BlackboardAssist
Togetherall

Togetherall is a safe, online community to share feelings anonymously and get support to improve mental health and wellbeing.  In the community people support each other, safely monitored by licensed and registered mental health practitioners.

Looking for additional resources? These should help: