Managing Users and User Roles

Topic Overview

Instructors can add additional users to your Learn Original Blackboard course in the following roles:

Instructor: The Instructor role has the highest level of privilege within a course. Typically, the Instructor is the person teaching or leading the class. The Instructor has access to everything in the course's Control Panel.
Teaching Assistant: The teaching assistant is the rough equivalent of the Instructor. The teaching assistant has access to everything in the course's Control Panel except for certain user management capabilities (such as the ability to remove users from the course).
Course Builder: The course builder role has access to the course's Control Panel, but only to the content areas section and the user management section. An instructor would assign someone the course builder role so that person could assist the instructor in the creation of course content and some of the course management. The course builder does not have access to the course Grade Center.
Grader: The grader role has access to the course's Control Panel, but only to the assessment section. A grader would assist the instructor in the creation, management, delivery, and grading of online assessments delivered through Blackboard. The grader does have access to the course Grade Center.

Note that you cannot add students to your class as they are automatically added or dropped via the registrar.

Removing/deleting users from a course is disabled because it can cause conflict with registrar records and remove the content in some cases. Please contact help@syr.edu or 315-443-2677 if you need to remove a user's access.

These course roles will grant the user access to private and confidential student and course data. To abide by FERPA law, instructors are required to inform these users of the responsibilities that come with these privileges. At all times, users with access to privileged course information and student data must ensure the privacy and confidentiality of all other course users and data and may not share this data with any unauthorized persons.

Some third-party tools do not work with the role of Course Builder or Grader because of the limitations of those roles. For example, neither Course Builders nor Graders can create Turnitin assignments—they will receive and error about their role in the course.

Instructors can only add a user to the course if the user's account is active in Blackboard. If the instructor receives an error message that the user is not available, or if he/she wishes to add, remove, or change the role of a user with the role of guest "instructor" or "student" (doing an incomplete), please email to help@syr.edu or call x2677 to inform the Blackboard system administrators.

Steps

Click on the "Manage Users" tool in the Users and Groups section of the Control Panel:
1. A pop-up window will appear describing the tool. You can clear this by clicking the X at the upper right. To prevent the pop-up from appearing every time you use Manage Users, click on "preferences" in the gray section above and to the right of the user list and then "Submit:"
2. If you are working on a merged course you may see a Performance Warning window. Click "Try Now" and "Submit." You can stop it from reappearing by checking the box for "Try now and do not prompt me again," and then "Submit:"
To add users:
1. Click the "Add" button at the upper left above the user list:
2. This will open the Add Users window:
3. Enter the NetID of the user you want to add. You can enter multiple usernames by separating them with commas, e.g., username1, username2, username3... If you don't know a person's username, you can use the Search section at the top.
  - Here, you can search using one of several criteria: first name, last name, username, or student ID number. Enter the criterion and click "Search."
  - This brings you to the Search Results page with people that match the search criterion.
  - If you can't find the user, try using a different search criterion and verify that they are not already enrolled in the course.
  - Select the checkbox(es) of the user(s) you wish to have added.
  - This brings you back to the Add Users page. The username(s) of the people you wish to add is/are listed in the username box.
4. Select the desired role for the additional user(s).
5. Click Submit.

Learn Ultra Course View

At this time, instructors cannot manage users and user roles in their Ultra Course. If you need to add a TA/Grader, or change a user's role, please contact help@syr.edu or 315-443-2677 with the following information: the course name and 5 digit ID, the user's name and netID and the role that they should have.