I recently worked with a professor who was having a problem with some items in their course not being visible to students. After digging, we discovered that they had copied their course contents from a previous semester, and the availability dates on the non-visible items were still set for that semester. We updated the dates, and the items were visible to students again.
Blackboard offers two ways to update the availability dates in your course. The first is to go through the course and manually reset the dates. Depending on how many items in your course have availability dates that need to be updated, this can be very time-consuming. Luckily, Blackboard provides a tool that can make this quick and easy.
In the Course Tools section of the Course Management menu in your Blackboard course is the Date Management tool. This tool gives you three different ways to update the dates in your course (this also applies to other dates in your course, such as due dates).
The first option is Use Course Start Date. This option will compare the start date of the current session (actually the date the course is available to students, two days before the official start date) to the start date of the session the course was copied from and adjust the dates by the number of days between the two dates.
The second option is Adjust by Number of Days. This option will allow you to enter the number of days you would like to shift the dates.
The third option is List Dates For Review. This option will give you a list of all of the dates in your course and allow you to change each of them individually.
The Date Management tool can make a tedious and time-consuming process much easier and quicker. It can also help prevent problems that may arise mid-session because you may have missed a date on an important assignment or test. If you have any questions about the Date Management tool, contact your designated Instructional Designer.
