How do I make a course available or unavailable to students in Blackboard?

Courses created in Blackboard are available by default to Instructors, TA's, and Course Builders to allow time to work on course updates before students have access to it. Students cannot access a course set to Unavailable, but they will see it listed on their Courses page.

Requesting Change to Course Availability Dates

NOTE: Course duration start dates are set by default to 3 weeks prior to the start of the term. A course will not be open to students until the actual date it is set to open.

Both Original and Ultra courses must be manually updated by Instructional Technology. If you would like to make a course available prior to the default start date for the term, please Open an RT ticket to request a course availability override.

Tell Me

There are 2 ways to make your course available:

OPTION #1 - Ultra OR Original
Go the the Courses page. Find your course. Click on the overflow menu (...) to set the course status. Choose Open Course when you're ready for students to participate.
OPTION #2 - Original Only
Use the Make Available tool from your Original course's Home Page. Log into your course. By default, the Home Page is the first thing you will see. Click on the lock icon in the upper right corner. When unavailable, the icon appears as a closed lock outlined in red. When available, the icon appears as an black open lock outlined in black. NOTE: This tool is ONLY available from the Home Page. If you change your course's landing page, you will not see this tool unless you go to the Home Page.

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