Date Last Reviewed:
08/20/2009
Blackboard communities are fee-based communities created within the NIU Blackboard system for the purpose of communication, collaboration, and/or training for official NIU departments, organizations, and committees. They are not to be used for outside commercial endeavors. They can be either temporary or on-going in nature.
See the ITS Rates page.
Charges are incurred each semester for on-going communities. If your community will not be used at all during the summer semester, please add a note to that effect in the comments field, so your department will not be billed for summer semester.
A onetime batch creation and enrollment of new participants into the community is included in the pricing structure if the participant data is provided with the request in the required format below. Additional services may incur additional fees.
Blackboard Online Community Request
Requests must include:
The community leader(s) manage content and participant enrollment. These functions are the responsibility of the community leader(s) and are generally not provided by ITS, with the exception of a possible single batch enrollment option as noted in the pricing information below.
Blackboard communities have most of the same features and functionality as Blackboard courses but are meant to be used for NIU functions other than courses scheduled through Registration and Records. Participants in Blackboard communities can be NIU students, faculty, staff, or NIU affiliates who have a valid relationship to NIU (e.g., serving on an NIU committee, acting as a guest speaker or facilitator for a campus organization, or community partners).
If NIU AccountIDs already exist in Blackboard for the participants, the only information needed to batch enroll them is a list of the AccountIDs (same as Novell ID or Z-ID).
To request Novell AccountIDs for outside participants, download and fill out the Blackboard Affiliate AccountID spreadsheet. The following information is required for each participant:
E-mail the completed spreadsheet to: AccountID@niu.edu
The community leader will be notified once the Affiliate AccountIDs have been created.
It is the community leader’s responsibility to distribute the necessary login information needed to each community participant.
Blackboard communities are accessed from the Community tab, not the Courses tab. The Blackboard community leader role is nearly identical to the course instructor role with the exception that the community leader does not make use of the Faculty Blackboard Course Utilities interface. Communities must be created manually by a Blackboard administrator. Scheduled course sections are populated automatically by a Registration and Records data feed, while community enrollment is generally the responsibility of the community leader. The community leader has the ability to manually enroll participants who already have existing AccountIDs in Blackboard (as does a course instructor).
Support for Blackboard communities
Since Blackboard communities are similar to Blackboard courses, community leaders can reference Faculty Development Blackboard support.
Still need help? Contact the Helpdesk.