Blackboard Community Requests

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.

Pricing

Blackboard Community Rates

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.

Request a Blackboard community

itsforms.niu.edu > Computing Access Resources > Blackboard

You will need:

• Community name
• Purpose of community
• Length of time needed 
• Designated leader(s) for the community, including contact information
• List of AccountIDs (i.e., Novell IDs) of members
• Departmental account to be billed

Enroll participants in a Blackboard community

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.

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).

NIU Affiliate Account requests for Blackboard community participants can be made using the Computing Access Resources (CAR) form at itsforms.niu.edu. Select Account Type Faculty/Staff > Blackboard > Affiliate Account.

The following information is required for each participant:

• First Name / Middle Initial / Last Name
• Date of Birth
• Expiration date (how long the AccountID will need to be retained for use with the Community)
• Community ID
• E-mail address

It is the community leader’s responsibility to distribute the login information to each community participant.

Manage a Blackboard community

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.

Support for Blackboard communities

Since Blackboard communities are similar to Blackboard courses, community leaders can reference Faculty Development Blackboard support.

Need help? Contact the Helpdesk.