Blackboard Best Practices for Faculty

This is a list of recommended best practices for any faculty member who uses Blackboard at Missouri State University.
 

1. Know where to find your resources and how to use them. 
   The Computer Services Help Desk has compiled an abundance of resources that will assist in your usage of Blackboard while teaching at the University. We have live training sessions, instructional videos, online instructional guides, live chat, and phone support – just to name a few. Check out the LMS Resources for Faculty organization in the Blackboard Community tab to access our training materials.

2. Request and use a Master Course to design your courses.
   To ease the process of developing your courses, request a Master Course for each course you teach. This allows you to create and design a template for each course that you can then copy to each Blackboard section that you are teaching. This will make your copies cleaner, and you won't need to worry about student data being transferred from section to section. Read more about Master Courses and their best practices.

3. Upload your files to the Content Collection.
   Blackboard has a file storage system called the Content Collection where you can store all* of your files on Blackboard. Using the Content Collection will make updating files easier if you use them year to year, in multiple courses, or if you share them with other instructors.

   *CAUTION: Instructors and students should not upload large, media heavy files such as videos, animations, and narrated slideshows to Blackboard. Those uploads affect overall course size and Blackboard storage is at a premium. See #8 below for information on hosting/streaming videos from another platform. Non-streaming file types such as large documents and slideshows can be shared from OneDrive for Business as a link in Blackboard. You may check your course package size as you build and periodically review your Blackboard course. Target course size is 1GB or less.

4. Learn how to use Test Availability Exceptions. 
   Blackboard has many features that allow you to meet all your students' needs. Test availability exceptions and adaptive release will help you accommodate your learners and control access to your content.

5. Communicate course organization and expectations with students.
   Let your students know exactly where course content can be found in your Blackboard course and what you expect out of them. Every Blackboard course is set up differently, so they need help understanding how you have designed your course.

6. Use Due Dates and the Blackboard Calendar. 
   Adding a Due Date when deploying an assessment will ensure that it shows up on the students' Blackboard Calendar. Students can check this calendar as well as sync it with their mobile devices and other calendars to help them stay on top of their course work.  

7. Be aware of your web browser.
   Blackboard supports Firefox, Edge, Safari, and Chrome, but Chrome and Firefox are the preferred browsers. See the supported browsers page for more information.

8. Do not upload videos directly to Blackboard.
   Videos should be uploaded to a site such as YouTube or Microsoft Stream, and the links to the videos can be shared within your Blackboard courses. Blackboard is not a video hosting or streaming platform and uploading videos directly to your course will cause performance issues. This includes student videos that are part of assessments in your course; they should be hosted on another platform and the student should provide a link to the video.

To request help related to this article, please see our Service Catalog.