How to add a Course Link within your Blackboard course

ā€œCourse linksā€ are links to other areas of your Blackboard course. Course links allow you to place a link within one part of your Blackboard course, which when clicked on by a student will take them to any other chosen part of your Blackboard course.

Course links can be useful for referring students to other areas of your course. For example next to some slides in a folder within Course Documents you could place a link to a discussion forum and ask students to discuss points raised in the lecture notes.

Edit Mode

Edit Mode

1. Check that Edit Mode is turned ON.Ā  This can be switched by clicking ON or OFF.

Content Area

Content Area

2. Choose the Content Area into which you wish to add your course link.Ā  All the content areas work in the same way, if you have renamed or added content areas to your Blackboard course the screenshot above may vary from what you see.

Course Link

Course Link

3. Hover your mouse pointer over Build Content and then click on Course Link.

Browse

Browse

4. Click on Browse.

The Browse Window

The Browse Window

5. You will be presented with the course map. Select the item to which you wish to create a link.

Link Information

Link Information

6. You may now complete the other information about the link:

Name
The name will automatically be populated with the name of the content item to which you are creating a link. If the text is not clear delete it and enter something more appropriate.

Location
This box is automatically populated. It shows where the link will take the user.

Description
Use this text box to explain to students what this link is and why it is there.

Options

Options

7. The following options are the same as those that can be applied to most content you add to Blackboard:

Permit Users to View this Content
Do you want students to be able to access this course link? Selecting No would prevent your students from viewing it, but you would still be able to view it while Edit Mode is ON. The date restrictions option below is a more powerful way of doing a similar action. The default for this option is Yes.

Track number of views
Select Yes to indicate that the system is to track the number of times a user accesses this course link. Select No to indicate that the number of times this page is accessed will not be tracked. Only use this option when you particularly require tracking information. A general report on Course Statistics provides tracking information for the whole course and is available from the Control Panel. For more information about this feature check the link on the right under “What’s Related”.

Select Date and Time Restrictions
If you wish you may restrict when this course link will appear. Tick the boxes and determine times and dates as appropriate. Ticking Display After will mean that the content will appear from the time and date that you select. Ticking Display Until will mean that the content will no longer be visible to studentsĀ after the date and time selected has passed. This only affects the way the material appears to students. As a course instructor you can change this setting at any time and the content will always be available to you.

Click on Submit

Click on Submit

8. Click on Submit to finish.

The link has been created

The link has been created

9. Your Course Link has been created. Further options are accessible from the Modify button beside the name of the link.