Student Training: Blackboard Base Navigation
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When you log in to Blackboard, you have access to the features in the list under your name. This menu is always visible on the left side, even when you have a course page open. Selecting an item from this list will show you a global view of all of your Blackboard courses.
The first page you see is the Institution Page, which includes University-wide links and announcements.
Select a topic below to learn more about the most-used pages on Ultra Base Navigation.
Edit Your Profile
In the Ultra Base Navigation menu, select your name to access your profile.
Here you will see the following:
- Profile Picture
- Basic Information and Contact Information , including your name, password, email address, address, and student ID.
- System settings, including language, privacy settings, and Global Notification Settings.
Profile Picture
Your profile picture appears on course content pages, conversations, messages, rosters, and discussions.
To change your profile picture:
- Select the pencil icon that appears when you scroll over the generic silhouette or your current profile picture.
- Select Upload new profile picture to browse your computer for your picture. You can also drag the file to the Upload area.
- Select the image. It will save automatically. Close the panel to return to your profile page.
Basic information
Your name, email address, address, and Student ID can not be edited, as they are sent to Blackboard from your student record. To change your password, click on change password and follow the instructions.
Blackboard gives you the option to add pronunciation to your name. Click on Add pronunciation. In the side panel, click on the text box to add a phonetic spelling. Or click on Record name pronunciation to use your computer's microphone to record yourself pronouncing your name.
System Settings
Langauge and privacy settings are set by the system and can not be edited.
In Global Notification settings, you can change what notifications to get and how often you get them.
- Choose Stream Notifications to change which notications you will see in your Blackboard Activity Stream.
- Choose Email Notifications to choose which activities you would like emailed to you and whether you would like emails sent right away or once per day.
- Chose Push Notifications to choose which activities cause a notification from your mobile app. (Notifications for due dates always appear in the app.)
You can change which notifications you want to receive and how often you receive them. Watch the video below to see how.
Activity Stream
The Activity Stream is an important and valuable feature of the Ultra navigation system. Choose which notifications you receive in your Activity Stream in the Notifications setting of your Profile. Once you have notifications set up the way you want, your Activity Stream will be customized to show you exactly what you need to see to keep up with your courseswork.
Through your Activity Stream, you can:
- Receive reminders about pending deadlines, assignment due dates, tests, and graded discussions
- Check your grades. As your instructor updates a grade in your course, it will also be updated in the stream.
- See a global view of all of your tasks in all of your courses
Categories
Items in your activity stream are grouped into four categories:
- Important: This section contains overdue assignments, tests, and discussions
- Upcoming: This section appears only if you have upcoming events. You will automatically see the top five events for the next seven days. Select Show More for a complete list.
- Today: See everything due in the next 24 hours, as well as emergency announcements from WSU
- Recent: This section includes items that were previously in the Today section.
This short video from Blackboard explains the Activity Stream:
Courses
The Courses Page allows you to see all of your Wichita State Blackboard courses, past and present, in one place. If the course has been made available/accessible to students, the course name is a clickable link to enter the course. If the Blackboard course is not available to students, the course name is not a link and will be followed by the words 鈥�not currently available鈥�.
The instructor must make a Blackboard course available before students will be able to enter the site and access content.
Courses are divided into sections based on their selected term.
Use the current courses tab or the forward and back arrows at the top of the page to view current or upcoming courses or navigate between terms.
Clicking the star on the right side of the course will make it one of your "favorites" section.
Now the Favorites section is pinned to the top of your course list.
Search for a course by typing into the search box, and filter your search by choosing one of the filter options.
Calendar
Your Calendar shows you a global view of all the events in all of your course calendars.
See a list of all your assignments, organized by due date by selecting Due Date. Each course is assigned a different color.
Select Day or Month to change the Calendar view.
For instructions on how to integrate your Google Calendar with your Blackboard calendar, see Calendar Merge.
For more detailed instructions about using the Global calendar, watch the Blackboard video below:
Messages
The Messages tab allows you to access messages from all of your courses, whether they are in Original format or Ultra format.
The notification for unread messages appears below the name of the course and the course ID.
For more information about using the global messages tool, watch the Blackboard video below:
Grades
Like the Messages tool, the Grades tool gives you access to your grades for all of your classes, whether they are in Original or Ultra format.
In this menu, your grades are organized by course name and in alphabetical order. If you select an item in any course, you can view details about that item. If you want to view all grades for one course, select the course name to go to its grade page.
The following Blackboard video shows you how to access grades in several ways:
Troubleshooting in Blackboard
If you are experiencing difficulties in Blackboard, you may find these simple troubleshooting techniques helpful:
- Make Sure You Are On the Internet. Especially if you are using Wifi, you may find that you have lost your connection.
- Switch Browsers. A "browser" is the program you use to get on the Internet. Because these programs are owned by companies other than Blackboard, sometimes updates on one system will cause problems. Good browsers to try for Blackboard include Chrome and Firefox. If you are a Mac user, Safari usually works well too. When you try a different browser remember to login to Blackboard directly by typing blackboard.wichita.edu into the address bar. Do not login through MyWSU. Also, remember that Internet Explorer and Edge are not good choices when using Blackboard.
- Clear Your Cache. When computers are on the Internet, they use different techniques to improve the user experience and speed load times for webpages. Sometimes these techniques can cause problems and you need to force your system to load in webpages from scratch. To do that, you need to clear your browser's webpage memory or "cache." Each browser has its own cache, and you need to follow the instructions for the browser you are using. Here are links to these instructions for , , and .
- Check Your Physical Connections. It may seem unbelieveable, but many of the problems we see in help tickets are related to someone's computer (microphone, camera, monitor, etc.) getting unplugged. Make sure everything is plugged in tightly, including cables at the back of your machine.
- Get Help. If none of the troubleshooting steps above worked, it's time to get help by contacting the .