Manage Users

User Enrollment in a Blackboard Course

Enrollment in a Blackboard course will typically occur automatically based on registration, but users may also be added manually.

Automatic Enrollment for Instructors and Registered Students

Students registered in the HUB and officially enrolled in a course will automatically be enrolled in a Blackboard course. Based on the Blackboard course request made by the instructor, the instructor and TAs listed on the request form will also be automatically enrolled in the Blackboard course (given the instructor has requested a Blackboard course).

Common Problem:
Certain types of students commonly experience enrollment problems and therefore do not have access to course materials in Blackboard, especially during the first two weeks of the semester.

Cross-Registered Students: It can take up to two weeks for cross-registered students to receive their Andrew IDs. While students await their Andrew IDs, instructors may wish to allow guest access to their Blackboard course.

Students on the Wait List: Wait-listed students do not initially have access to the Blackboard course site. If you have important course materials that students need to see before they become automatically enrolled in the Blackboard course, you may want to manually enroll these students.

Enroll a TA / User

Instructors have the ability to manually enroll users in the course (e.g. TAs, students, guest lecturers). TAs can enroll students and guests in a course, but cannot enroll other TAs or instructors.

Note: Users must have an Andrew account to be added to the course. If a user does not have an Andrew account, refer to the "User Accounts" documentation.

  1. From the "Control Panel", expand the "Users and Groups" menu.
  2. Click "Users".
  3. Click "Find Users to Enroll" (located at the top of the "Users" page).
    Find Users to Enroll Screenshot
  4. If the Andrew ID of the user to add to the course is known, it can be supplied directly in the "Username" text field. If the Andrew ID of the user is not known, search for the user:
    1. Click "Browse..." to bring up a search window.
      Search Users - Browse Screenshot
    2. Select the appropriate field to search against:
      • Username: The user's Andrew ID
        (the text before the @andrew.cmu.edu in an official email address)
        Note: The text before an @cmu.edu email address is not guaranteed to be an andrew id.
      • Last Name: The user's surname
      • First Name: The user's given name
      • Email: The user's email address.
      Select Search Field Screenshot
    3. Select the search type "Contains" from the second dropdown menu, as it is the most liberal. Leave it as this unless too many results are returned to read through.
    4. Enter the known information about the user in text box.
      Search Text Screenshot
    5. Click "Go". Blackboard will return a list of users that matches the search parameters.
      Be Aware: A user already enrolled in the course will not be returned in these search results.
      Note: When a student has become "disabled" in the course, his/her name will not appear in either list. Contact Blackboard Support for assistance when this occurs. Search Users Results Screenshot
    6. Select the checkbox next to each user that should be enrolled in the course.
      Search Users Results Checked Screenshot
    7. Click "Submit" to return to the "Enroll Users" page with the results of the search. The username text field will be populated with the users returned from the search.
  5. From the "Enrollment Availability" dropdown menu, select a role for the user or leave the default ("Student").
    Enroll Users - Student Screenshot
  6. Click "Submit" to enroll the user.

Note: In Blackboard 9.1, the "Search" field on the "Users" page is intended for searching students already enrolled in the Blackboard course and does NOT search for all users listed in the Carnegie Mellon directory. A separate "Search" field is provided for finding users to manually enroll in the course.

List Enrolled Users

Expand the "Users and Groups" area in the "Control Panel" and click on "Users". A list of users enrolled in the course will appear.
List Users Screenshot

Note: If all users are not showing and you'd like to show all, click the "Show All" button located beneath the list of users.

If the list of students is empty, Blackboard may have a cached filter. To reset the filter and view all enrolled users:

  1. Locate the two dropdown menus that appear under the "Find Users to Enroll" button at the top of the "Users" page.
  2. Select "Not blank" in the second dropdown menu.
  3. Delete any text that appears in the text box to its right.
  4. Click "Go" which appears to the far right of the text box. This will prompt Blackboard to load the current list of enrolled users.

Search for an Enrolled User

Enter an enrolled user's Last Name, User Name, or Email address in the Search field and click the "Go" button. The user's information (name, username, email, role in Blackboard) will appear.
List Users Screenshot

Note: This search utility will only return results for users already enrolled in the course.

User Accounts

To receive access to Blackboard courses, individuals must have an Andrew Account. Instructors may request a Blackboard Sponsored Account for individuals who are not eligible for Andrew accounts.

Andrew Accounts

ALL Carnegie Mellon faculty, staff, and students are eligible for Andrew IDs. Learn more about managing your Andrew Account from the Computing Services' documentation:

Blackboard Sponsored Accounts

Blackboard Sponsored Accounts are provided by the Eberly Center at the instructor's request. This type of account is set up to give individuals who are NOT eligible for Andrew accounts access to a Blackboard course. This account does not provide access to any other Carnegie Mellon computing service.

Request a Blackboard Sponsored Account

Instructors: If you need to provide access to Blackboard for someone who is not eligible for an Andrew account, please send us an email and include the following information:

Send your Blackboard Sponsored Account request to: bb-help@andrew.cmu.edu

General Guidelines for Sponsored Account Use

Account holders/users (owners) and their sponsors are held responsible for the correct use of the sponsored account. Sponsored accounts are not to be used for commercial purposes and should serve educational and university purposes.

Guest Access

Guests are defined by Blackboard, Inc. as users in a course who do not directly participate in its activities. By default, Guest Access is turned off. Once the instructor turns on guest settings at various levels within the course, guests will have the ability to access the course and those areas and files within the course that the instructor has enabled.

Enroll Guests

Note: Each guest must already have an Andrew account. Read more about sponsored accounts

Follow the process to manually enroll a user. When able to select a role for the user, select "Guest".

Enable Guest Access

To successfully enable guest access, three different configuration changes must be made:

  1. Turn on guest access at the course level.
  2. Make course areas visible to guests.
  3. Provide guest access to download files.

Warning: Instructors should not open access to guests if the Blackboard course contains copyrighted material.

Turn on Guest Access at the Course Level

  1. From the "Control Panel", expand "Customizations" and click "Guest and Observer Access".
  2. Select "Yes" under "Allow Guest Access" to allow guest access to the course.
    Enable Guest Access Screenshot

Make Course Areas Visible to Guests

  1. From the "Control Panel", expand "Customizations" and click "Tool Availability".
  2. Select the checkboxes under the "Visible to Guests" column that correspond to the tools and areas that should be available to guests.
    Enable Tools for Guest Access Screenshot

Provide Guest Access to Download Files

Instructors can provide guest access to all course files or to individual files.

Guest Access to All Files

  1. From the "Control Panel," expand "Files" and click on the course title to enter the course files screen.
  2. Click the double-down arrows next to the course title to expand the menu options.
    File Permissions for Guest Access Screenshot
  3. Select "Permissions" from the menu. A "Manage Permissions" window will appear.
  4. Add a "Guest" user type to the course files so that those individuals with the role of "Guest" can access the course files.
    1. Click the "Add Course User List" button.
      Manage Permissions for Guest Access Screenshot
    2. Select "Guest" located under "Select Roles" and then select the "Permissions" to be granted guests. The default is set to "Read" which will allow guests access to download files. This is the recommended setting. Then click "Submit".
      Add Course User List for Guest Access Screenshot
    3. A confirmation message will appear at the top of the page. Note that there is now a "Guest" user type in the listing. Click "OK". Guest users will now have access to download and view all course files.
      Confirmation of Add Course User List for Guest Access Screenshot

Guest Access to Specific Files

  1. From the "Control Panel," expand "Files" and click on the course title to enter the course files screen.
  2. Click the double-down arrows next to one of the course files to expand the menu options.
    Individual File Permissions for Guest Access Screenshot
  3. Select "Permissions" from the menu. A "Manage Permissions" window will appear.
  4. Add a "Guest" user type so that those individuals with the role of "Guest" can access the file.
    1. Click the "Add Course User List" button.
      Manage Permissions for Guest Access Screenshot
    2. Select "Guest" located under "Select Roles" and then select the "Permissions" to be granted guests. The default is set to "Read" which will allow guests access to download files. This is the recommended setting. Then click "Submit".
      Add Course User List for Guest Access Screenshot
    3. A confirmation message will appear at the top of the page. Note that there is now a "Guest" user type in the listing. Click "OK". Guest users will now have access to download and view the individual course file once you post it in a content area that Guests can access.
      Confirmation of Add Course User List for Guest Access Screenshot

User Roles & Affordances

User roles govern the amount and type of access to components of a Blackboard Course.

Types of User Roles

A user can be assigned only one of the following roles:

Change a User's Role in a Blackboard Course

  1. Navigate to the Users page.
  2. Click on the dropdown arrow icon next to a user's name and select "Change User's Role in Course" from the dropdown menu.
    Change a User's Role Screenshot
  3. The available roles will appear. Click on the radio button next to the desired role.
  4. Click "Submit"