Using Blackboard

Enance your courses by cultivating online communities in Blackboard.

What Is Blackboard?

Blackboard is a course management system that enables you to share resources (e.g., articles, videos, syllabi) with your students online. Saint Mary’s encourages faculty to use Blackboard for face-to-face and blended courses. Use its features below to cultivate engaging learning experiences.

Share documents with your students.

Blackboard enables you to share YouTube videos, documents, photos, PowerPoints, and audio files with your students. This saves you the trouble of printing copies, and students appreciate the ability to access documents online. Read the Blackboard tutorial on how to create content in a course area. You can also link to library articles and Google Docs in Blackboard.

Engage your students with Blackboard’s interactive features.

You can also use Blackboard to create engaging online communities. Blackboard features include discussion boards, wikis,  blogs, and journals, portfolios, quizzes, tests, surveys, and more. Students can upload assignments, and you can grade them in Blackboard. Once students submit their files, you can view them, provide feedback, score them using a rubric, and post grades.

Learning How to Use Blackboard

Begin learning about Blackboard by reading Getting Started with Blackboard or by attending CELT’s Blackboard training events, which are offered several times a year. Get further support by contacting our Educational Technology team at edtech@smumn.edu.

Accessing Your Blackboard Course

Your Blackboard course will be available when registration begins. To access your Blackboard course:

  1. Go to Blackboard at courses.smumn.edu.
  2. Log in using your Saint Mary’s username and password.
  3. Find your course in the My Courses module.

Setting Up Online Courses in Engage

If you teach a fully online course through our partner, Wiley, you will use the Engage course management system. The nice part is that Wiley will upload course materials for you. However, you will need to learn how to navigate your Engage course. You can explore your Engage course independently, or ask your program director to arrange a tour guided by Wiley staff.