What are the Blackboard Administrative Requests that I can make through the Innovative Learning Support Centre?
Through the Innovative Learning Support Centre, there are 3 main administrative requests within Blackboard that you can make. These requests require Associate Dean (or Manager/Director) approval, so please ensure that your management is aware of these requests, as they will be asked to approve it.
- Merging Course Sections in Blackboard
- The process of linking two or more course sections (referred to as child courses) into one centralized parent course (referred to as an XL site) in Blackboard. Instructors manage all content and students in the XL site, while students still see their original child courses and have access to the shared content within the XL site.
- Learn about this below!
- Adding, Removing or Extending access to Individuals from a Course
- In Blackboard, there are a variety of defined user-types, including; the ‘Instructor’ role that has full access to the course, the ‘Course Builder’ role that can manage content (except grades/Gradebook), the ‘Student’ role for viewing content, and the ‘Student Support’ role for mirroring Student for accessibility needs.
- Requesting a Blackboard Course from the Innovative Learning Support Centre
- In Blackboard, instructors and staff can request different types of courses, including XL (cross-listed), PMR, ADR, FAC, DEVU, and SBX, each designed for specific purposes like development of course content, discovering Blackboard features, or training, with defined storage limits and access durations.
What is a merge?
When an instructor is assigned to multiple sections of the same course, it may be convenient for the instructor to merge the sections. The graphic below illustrates the idea of merging. In this example, an instructor has three sections of the same course. By requesting to merge three courses (Child course 1, Child course 2 and Child course 3), the courses will be connected through an empty parent course. The name of the parent course starts with XL, and Innovative Learning also calls it an XL site.
Once a merge is complete, the instructor will see the XL site in Blackboard. The instructor will no longer access the individual course sections (child courses). Students will continue to see the original name of the registered course section but will have access to the content of the XL site.
Note: the XL site will be created with no content. It is the instructor’s responsibility to add content to the newly-created XL site.
What are the Pros and Cons of Merging Courses?
- PROS: No need to upload content in each section, and you will be able to manage multiple sections of students in one Parent course (XL site).
- CONS: Course enrollment from all sections/child courses are merged together into one; there is no indication in Blackboard as to which students belong to which section. (You can find this information in My Humber or Banner.)
What should I know before merging courses?
- It is strongly recommended that a merge request be completed before start-up, and it is highly advised to refrain from adding new content until a merge is complete.
- This is because merging throughout the term causes the merged courses to lose all data (all course content as well as student grades and submissions).
- You can request to add a new section to the existing XL site.
- Upon approval of Associate Dean, you may merge sections taught by different instructors as well.
How do I request a merge?
- Have the email address of your Associate Dean who approved your request ready.
- Locate CRN, course code, and section of the courses you want to merge.
- Complete the LMS Blackboard Ultra Admin Request form on the Innovative Learning Support Centre website to request a merge.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Merges
A parent course — also known as an XL course — is the result of a merging of multiple sections of a course together into one Blackboard site. Any content managed in the parent course will be visible to all enrolments in the child courses and that enrolment will be populated in the parent course as a mass list (does not specify sections).
This is the course that is now connected to the Parent course and will no longer be used or available. Note: students will see the course they are registered in (from MyHumber) on their list in Courses and will see the content in the parent (XL) course.
An XL course — also known as a parent course — is the result of a merging of multiple sections of a course together. When attached to an XL site in Blackboard, the instructor will see a course ID or course code including “XL-” followed by 5 digits (e.g., XL00000). This XL number is how they can identify this new parent course.
Complete the LMS Blackboard Ultra Admin Request form on the IL Support Centre website to request a merge (cross-list) of course sections.
Parent courses are a new site creation and as such do not have content in it to start. Content does not get moved from a child to the Parent as there is no way to connect them. The children are just combined to that Parent. It is recommended to wait until a merge request has been completed to move content in.
The content in the child course is no longer available and cannot be accessed once a merging (cross-list) has been completed. It is recommended to wait until a merge request has been completed to move content in.
Yes, when adding a new CRN to the parent, that new one would then have access to existing content in the XL parent.
Provide the XL number and the course code and section or CRN in the request and this new course will then be merged with the XL and have access to that information in the XL after the ticket has been completed.
If you have a new section that needs to be added later, maybe a couple of weeks after the initial merge was created, you can do so. That new course will combine into the parent so they can access the content as well.
Requesting a merge should happen before the start date of a course or near the beginning of it when there is no content or activity. If you have content/activity in your course that information would be lost when creating a parent course and would not be able to be retrieved. As students may have submitted assignments, communication and/or have grades posted, it is not recommended to do this.
Submit a request to Innovative Learning stating the needed information and your wish for them to be un-merged. Keep in mind this should be requested only if no content, submissions or activity has happened in the course as that will be lost with the access to the XL course.
The courses can only be merged together into a single XL course if they were created under the same PoT (term code).
Contact the Innovative Learning Support Centre if you need support. We are here to help!