October 29, 2009

Sharing course materials among instructors and students can be a challenge for coordinators of multi-section courses with multiple instructors.  In this session, we discussed several models for using Blackboard to share course materials:

• Brian Lym and Jean-Jacques Strayer (Hunter Library) presented a set of information literacy resources reviewed by the librarians, which are relevant to a range of courses.  They are currently available to English 120 instructors through an instructor community on Blackboard. They are now considering ways to make these resources directly available to students through a master course and to make them available to the broader Hunter community.
• Sandra Clarkson and Bill Williams (Statistics) described the challenge of coordinating adjuncts with a wide variety of backgrounds and experience.  They have created an instructor community on Blackboard, using it as a vehicle for more experienced instructors to work with less experienced instructors.  Professors Clarkson and Williams have also created a common bank of exam questions, from which instructors create their exams.  They are now considering how to get adjunct instructors more involved in thinking about pedagogy and assessment, through additional training and the use of reflective blogs.
• Alicia Ramos (Romance Languages) described how she has created a course template that is copied to all course sections at the beginning of the semester to ensure uniform announcements, class policies, and access to course materials.  She has also created an instructor community, which is used to share information about staff meetings, course guidelines, and course resources.

Help Documents

• Blackboard Organizations
• Merging courses
• Adding instructors, TAs and course builders
• Course and organization roles
• Copying materials from a previous course
• Managing groups