Matthias K. Gobbert

How to Use Blackboard.com

This page can be reached via my homepage at http://www.math.umbc.edu/~gobbert.

Intended Audience

The following information is written for students, not for instructors! That is, I am making the following assumption:

You are a student in a class, and your instructor is using Blackboard.com in the class.

How to Get to Your Class in Blackboard.com

Background: Blackboard.com uses the authentication provided by myUMBC. So, if you go directly to http://www.umbc.edu/blackboard and hit the "Login" button there, you will be re-directed via the myUMBC authentication function. Alternatively, you can login to myUMBC first and then go to Blackboard.com; this is how I chose to describe it in the following, because it established authentication first, then leaves myUMBC to go to Blackboard.com

Go to http://my.umbc.edu. and log in, i.e., provide the usual authentication.
Click on the tab labeled "Blackboard".
Click on the "Login" button on the left. Depending on your browser, you might get a warning that you are requesting an "insecure document". This is okay.
After automatic re-direction, you should end on your personal Blackboard start page (without actually logging in again).

Your personal start page in Blackboard.com can be customized by you, e.g., with respect to the order of boxes and buttons, so I cannot provide any direct guidance as to the location of items here. However, under "My Courses", you should see all of your classes that use Blackboard and for which you are enrolled already.

For our FYS 101A in Spring 2003, I have verified that all students, who are presently enrolled in the course, are also enrolled in the Blackboard course. So, you should indeed see the course. If there is any problem with that, please let me know as soon as possible.

How to Change Your E-Mail Address in Blackboard.com and Why

First regarding the "why?": One of the desirable features of Blackboard.com is that an instructor can send e-mail to the students or that members of a group (set up by the instructor) can send mail to all members of the group. For this to work, Blackboard.com needs to know your correct e-mail address. By default, your UMBC address is set. If you use your UMBC e-mail address, you should not need to do anything, but I would still recommend to check the setting of the address for correctness. However, if you prefer to receive mail at a different address, you should definitely change the setting as soon as possible. Here is the "how":

Go to your personal Blackboard start page, as described above; that is the first page after logging in to Blackboard.
Click on "Personal Information", which appears in the left bar on my page.
Select "Edit Personal Information".
Check the correctness of information and fix it as needed; most importantly, verify that the e-mail address is correct and change it as needed. Most information (beyond your name and e-mail address) in this form is never used, so you do not have to fill it in. In particular, you can actually delete your "Student ID", as it is not needed anywhere and since it constitutes a potential privacy issue.

Where to Find Documentation

When in the Blackboard site for a particular course, you can access the full "Manual" on Blackboard under the "Tools" tab.