Blackboard Learn will automatically create course shells for all spring 2016 courses listed in ISIS, but faculty need to take other steps to be sure classes are ready for students. 

Faculty no longer need to request creation of the course shells each semester. They can find their automatically created course shells in Blackboard, add content and make the courses available to students. Faculty who do not want to use Blackboard Learn are not required to take any action, because automatically created Blackboard courses will not be visible to students. 

Faculty who want to copy previous course content into the new course shell can copy the content themselves or ask the Blackboard Learn Team to copy the content for them by submitting the Blackboard Learn Course Change Request Form. Please remember to make the course available once the course content is copied and updated. By default, courses remain unavailable to students.

Blackboard Learn automatically combines cross-listed courses into a single course designated "COMBINED." If they choose, faculty may also ask the Blackboard Learn Team to combine multiple courses by submitting the Blackboard Learn Course Change Request Form. 

Please be aware, however, that combining multiple courses may reduce the amount of student performance data transmitted to UASuccess. This is caused of a technical problem, which the Blackboard Learn Team is trying to resolve. Faculty will see all of the individual, "uncombined" courses, but can hide these courses, as well as other currently unwanted courses, to reduce screen clutter. Students will see only the name and ID for the course in which they are officially enrolled.  

As before, enrolled students with a UARK username and password are automatically added to the course in Blackboard Learn. Changes to the course roster are now updated hourly.

For assistance copying course content, to request sections be combined, or for any other Blackboard questions, contact Blackboard Learn Help Desk at 479-575-6804 or bbhelp@uark.edu.