Otterbein Academic Continuity

Design Course Content in Blackboard Learn

This guide provides an overview of the various forms of content that can be created in a Blackboard course. This information is intended to help faculty get started with the course-building process.

Blackboard gives you a wide range of options for creating or uploading content or managing activities for your courses. For example, you can use your course as online storage to share course-related documents with your students or you can use it to build Web-based content to be read online, much like a Web site.  You can also use Blackboard's course tools to engage your students through online discussion or collaboration and to collect and grade student work. 

Most Blackboard courses use a combination of these features; but when you are starting out, it's better to focus on one and expand from there.  To determine the best fit for your course, think about the following:

Course Content vs. Course Tools

Will you use Blackboard mainly to share content (e.g., weekly readings, images, audio, video, Web-based articles, etc.) or to conduct course activities (e.g., student writing, tests or projects, discussions, etc.)?

• If you will use Blackboard primarily to share large amounts of information with your students, then Blackboard's content-building features may be the best option for you.

• If you will use Blackboard mainly to conduct and/or evaluate course activities you might find Blackboard's Course Tools to be more helpful. See our Getting Started with Course Tools in Blackboard LibGuide for more information. 

Blackboard uses a series of Course Areas or "containers" to organize and display course content. The Course Content portion of a Blackboard course is accessible to participants through the Course Menu, located at the top of the left-hand side column of the Blackboard interface.

By-and-large, each of these "containers" is a blank slate where you can place course content as needed (e.g., downloadable files, links to course tools & activities, multimedia content, etc.). The difference between them lies in how each one displays information (e.g., as a Web page, a list of links, a set of indexed pages, etc.). Choosing the best fit for you depends on the structure of your course and your particular needs as an instructor.

• Content Areas: large sections or all activities of a certain type within your course (e.g., "Readings", "Homework", "Projects", "Topic A", "Topic B", etc.).
   
• Folders: smaller divisions used to organize the content within an area (e.g., within "Readings" = "Week 1", "Week 2", etc.).
   
• Learning Modules: used to display material for online viewing, like a page on a Web site or an article in a blog. 
   
• Lesson Plans: used to collect and present content in a way that shows continuity based on a course's schedule or goals.

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