Blackboard @ SUNY Cortland is now Brightspace: Blackboard Information and Tutorials

Blackboard is a robust Learning Management System (LMS) used at SUNY Cortland. The instructional designers have compiled this "checklist" of tips to keep in mind when building your course. The list will be updated as we see fit, so check back for updates. Bookmark (CTRL+D / Command+D) the page!

1. Schedule a 1:1 session with an instructional designer. We are here to help you build your courses and can be as little as just checking over the course before you deploy it or building a brand-new course from the ground up. A 1:1 session is convenient for you as it's on YOUR time and location. We strongly suggest yearly consultation, even if it's just a phone conversation to make sure your course is on the right track and coincides with any updates and upgrades that might have been applied to the system.
2. Course Availability. By default, Blackboard courses are NOT available to your students. The message indicating that the course is not available means the course is unavailable to your students - not to you. It is your responsibility to make your course shells available. Check out our "Before you Begin" documentation to make sure you're on the right track and know how to make the course available.
3. Submit Your tickets through the Help Center. Instructional designers are always willing to assist with your technical problems, but due to our limited staff, it might be difficult to get ahold of us. It's often a better idea to put a ticket in with the Help Center either by email or calling x2500. A Help Center representative there may be able to solve your problem in a more timely fashion than waiting for an instructional designer.
4. Assessments - Don't use Force Complete. When instructors use Force Complete, it begins a session for their assessment and a student must complete all assigned work within the session period. The major downside is that students cannot under any circumstance leave the session without submitted their attempt. This includes system restarts, loss of internet connectivity, or internet hiccups and timeouts. Instead, opt to enable Auto-Submit, so if a students computer does restart, they can continue where they left off.
5. Clear your Cache. Many problems in web-based software such as Blackboard can be mended simply by clearing your cache. You could also try another browser. We recommend Firefox and Chrome to be the most stable for Blackboard.
6. Clear Word Formatting. Although our current Blackboard SP update has compatibility with MSWord's copy and paste, often times it will still not transfer as you'd like. We highly recommend copying the text into Notepad, then into Blackboard and format it within the WYSIWYG editor embedded in Blackboard's content editor.

Getting error messages in Blackboard? Try clearing your browser cache and cookies.  Click on the link below and follow the steps provided for Chrome or Firefox.  

Keep in mind that clearing your cache will erase saved passwords and settings.