Blackboard
Blackboard 9.0 is here!
Welcome to the Blackboard support site. This site was designed to cater to the support needs of students and instructors related to the Blackboard course management system. If this site leaves you with further questions, please feel free to contact the Office of Information Technology at it@niagara.edu.
The Blackboard system is located at http://blackboard.niagara.edu.
Blackboard 9.0 Intro
Blackboard Learn 9 has been officially launched at Niagara. While the core functionality is very similar to version 7.2 that we were previously using, there are some major enhancements to the user interface. Please review the information below to make sure you are ready to teach and learn with Blackboard 9.
- Enhanced Interface: Blackboard 9 offers an enhanced interface that should be more user friendly to somebody used to contemporary web-based applications. It will take a little getting used to, but the inclusion of handy drop down menus and drag and drop functionality will make life much easier.
- Training: The Office of Instruction Support and the Office of Information Technology are offering training sessions on Blackboard 9. The session dates are as follows: Session #1: Wednesday, August 19, 10:00-11:30 am; St. Vincent's Hall, #105, Session #2: Wednesday, August 19, 5:30-7:00 pm; St. Vincent's Hall, #105, Session #3: Monday, August 24, 1:00-2:30 pm; St. Vincent's Hall #105, Session #4: Tuesday, September 1, 10:00-11:30 am; St. Vincent's Hall #104.
Online Video Tutorials are also available on Blackboard site at http://www.blackboard.com/quicktutorials/quicktutorials.htm. - Your account: All user accounts had to be recreated in the upgrade. Faculty will get their new account info when requesting their courses for fall. Student accounts have been reset to the default password scheme.
- Why Upgrade?: Blackboard 7.2 was getting quite old, and will soon be end-of-lifed and no longer supported. That is a situation we would not want to face, and Blackboard 9's improvements will provide a great learning environment for our students.
- What About My Old Courses?: We have them! You can still request that your old course content be used when created new courses. That does not change.
- What If I Need Help?: We can help you. Contact Chester Barosky at cab@niagara.edu or x 8041 for assistance using Blackboard.
- How Do I Get My Course on Blackboard?: You can use the Faculty Course Request Form to get your course up on Blackboard.
Account Information
Faculty
Faculty are given their username and password when they request their course be added to Blackboard with the .
Students
Your username is s + your 7 digit student number. For example, if your student number is 106848, your username would be s0106848. Your default password is Nu + Day of Birth + last four digits of Social Security Number. If I was born on "June 10" and the last four digits of my Social security number are "3344", my defaulted password will be "Nu103344". Students are strongly encouraged to change their passwords once they’ve logged in for the first time. Alternately, if we do not have the required information on file for you to create the default password, an alternate password is used. This is 'Nu', followed by the first 2 letters of your last name, followed by the last 4 digits of your student number. This is your initial password, and it should be changed to something different.