What steps do I need to take to prepare for the upcoming semester?

For any given semester, courses are typically copied from either the most recently taught section or if you are developing (or revising) a course with the Instructional Design team, the content will be copied from the developmental section following the course approval process.

You should receive an email confirmation from CCS Technical Support after all online courses have been copied for a given semester.  If you do not receive an email and know that you are supposed to be teaching a course that is facilitated by Office of Teaching Innovation and Digital Education, please contact us as soon as possible.  Courses will be copied approximately 6 weeks prior to the beginning of the upcoming semester.

1. Log into each of your online Blackboard sections and review the content to make sure we’ve copied the correct content. If you see the wrong content, please email [e-mail] and let us know where in Blackboard to find the correct content. Also, if you need to super section a course or break up an existing super section, let us know that, too.
2. Update the dates in your course schedule document and adjust dates on the Blackboard assignments, tests, etc. to match. If you need our help with this, please email your updated course schedule document to [e-mail] and we’ll take it from there.
3. Click through the course, including the learning modules, to make sure that all of the links still work. Links to Youtube, UA Library Resources, and other sites often change, so it’s better for you to find these broken links now than your students to have to point them out to you during the semester.
4. By default, your students will have access to your online course in Blackboard beginning at 12:01 AM on the first day of class. If this day isn’t the best for you, you can change this to any day you wish by adjusting the settings in your course . If your course is under development with the Instructional Design Team, your course will be copied when the design process is complete.