For many different reasons, it may be helpful to add teaching assistants, second instructors, or guests into you Blackboard courses. Instructors that are co-listed on the Schedule of Classes will be automatically enrolled into the shell. Otherwise, instructors will need to manually add these users
Blackboard Roles Information
When adding a user to your course, be sure to provision the user with the correct course role:
- Guest Access will allow users to view content only. No access is provided to any tools that leave data footprints such as assessments or discussions. Guest Access must also be configured within the course. See How do I allow guest access to my Original Blackboard course? NOTE: The Guest role is NOT YET supported in Ultra courses.
- TAs will have access to Needs Grading and the grade center while graders can access Needs Grading, but not the grade center.
- Course Builders have access to everything that an Instructor can do except the Grade Center.
Users who are added to a course with the Instructor role by another Instructor can only be removed by a Blackboard system administrator.
Learn more about Blackboard Course Roles ↗︎
ACCESSIBILITY SUPPORT ROLES
There are two custom course roles in Blackboard that are available to support accessibility:
The Accessibility Support course role has the same privileges as a Student, which allow staff from Student Disabilities Services to review course content for accessibility.
An Interpreter also has the same privileges as a Student. This special role is designed to support students with hearing impairments as identified by Student Disabilities Services.
Please consult the Student Disabilities Services office for more information about using these roles.
Attempting to manually enroll or delete students from your course may repopulate them into your shell. If enrollments in your Blackboard shell appear off, please submit a ticket via RT.
Tell Me
- Locate Roster from the menu. Click the link below it.
- Click the + in the top right and click Enroll People
- Enter the name, email, or username of your Teaching Assistant in the search field.
- Click the + beside their name
- Select the appropriate role to add them to the course. Click on Submit.
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TIP: Click the video title to enlarge.
Tell Me
- Make sure Edit Mode is ON.
- Click on the Users and Groups area of the Control Panel.
- Click on Users.
Click Find Users to Enroll.
TIP: The search field on the main Users page will ONLY look at your current roster, not the Blackboard directory of users to add someone new.
On the Add Enrollments page, enter the teaching assistant's or instructor's username (do NOT include @umbc.edu of their email address).
- Select the appropriate role from the dropdown (Student, Interpreter, Teaching Assistant, Course Builder, Instructor, or Guest).
Leave enrollment availability set to YES.
WARNING
If you no longer want someone to have access to your course, you can change this to NO or remove the person altogether. However, removing the person will delete all user data including assessments, discussions, grades, etc., and this data cannot be recovered. Users can also be disabled, which preserves user data and removes users from a course, but you will need to request support from a Blackboard system admin.
- Click on Submit.
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Getting a permissions error? Please review this FAQ -> Why can't I add another user to my Blackboard course?