FAQs
Blackboard 9 FAQ Guide
Your username is the first part of your Hartford email address (without the @hartford.edu portion). Your password is your email password.
On the login page, click the Forgot Password link at the bottom of the white box on the page. If you have enrolled in the password reset tool with security questions, you can then click Forgot Password on this next page and follow the prompts to set a new one. If you have not enrolled, please email helpdesk@hartford.edu or call 860.768.4357 and a Help Desk Specialist can assist you.
When navigating to https://blackboard.hartford.edu you will be directed to a single sign on page where you have to enter your email credentials (username without the @hartford.edu and email password). Your password is identical to your email password. Any password reset will require that you reset your email password. There is no separate blackboard credential anymore.
My course is saying ‘not currently available’. What does that mean? How do I make it available?
By default, courses are unavailable to Students, but instructors can access them. To make it available, go to any content area, such as course documents. Click the lock icon in the upper right-hand corner next to Edit Mode to toggle availability for the whole course.
Below are steps for manually enrolling someone in a Blackboard course. Faculty should avoid manually adding or dropping students from Blackboard courses, as this will interfere with the automation process. However, in some cases it will be necessary to manually add a student or instructor, for example, adding a Teaching Assistant or Preceptor. Faculty should not manually add anyone who is (or will be at a future date) officially registered for the course.
Adding someone to a Blackboard Course:
- First, look up the person’s email so you know their Blackboard username.
- Enter your course and from the Control Panel.
- Click on Users and Groups, then Users.
- Click on Find Users to Enroll. (If you don’t click on Find Users to Enroll, you are only searching the roster for a user, rather than adding them.)
- Enter the Username of the person you are trying to add, but DO NOT CLICK BROWSE.
- Select the Role (student don’t get a control panel, but all others do, with varying rights.) and be sure Available is selected.
- Click on Submit.
Note: The browse button is only used to search for a username if you don’t have it at hand. Be sure you change the search criteria to last name when you do the search.
Please write us at fcld@hartford.edu if you need further assistance.
First, check with the Office Coordinator of your department to ensure that the course is not listed as Staff. If assigned to Staff, the course will not come over. If your course shows up in your name in Banner, email fcld@hartford.edu with the CRN number. We will coordinate with the registrar's office and ITS to ensure that it comes over in the next snapshot window which happens three times a day (7:30, 12:30, 4:30).
Edit the (item) and make sure you make that (item) available to students to view.
Check the date and time restrictions and/or adaptive release settings. Sometimes when a course is copied over, the dates are kept, so you may have dates from last semester or last year that are still there and need to be changed.
This may be a browser issue. Blackboard does support Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge Browsers. Instead, it is recommended that you use Chrome or Firefox browsers. If you are using Chome or Firefox, try clearing Browser Cache. Directions can also be found on the Technical Support tab in Blackboard.
It is likely that they need to enable pop-ups for Blackboard. Directions for Allowing Pop-Up Permissions for Blackboard can be found on the Technical Support tab in Blackboard.
I can only see Announcements (or some other area). I seem stuck.
Do you see the course menu on the left? If not, it may be that your course menu has collapsed. Try to minimize or maximize the window (CTRL +/- on PC or CMD +/- on Mac) and hover over the left of the course window until you see a blue or grey bar appear. Click on it, then the arrow to pull out the course menu. Exit the course and come back in (it should save).
Blackboard has a grade center where you can maintain and calculate grades throughout the semester, but it is not the grade of record. At University of Hartford, Blackboard does not pass back grades to the student information system (Banner). Instructors will need to go to Self-Service and login to enter midterm and final grades.
To hide old courses, click on the gear icon next to My Courses on your Blackboard homepage. From here, you can check or uncheck which classes you want to show on your homepage, then click Submit. This does not delete old courses; it simply hides them from view. You can access your hidden courses by clicking on the Courses tab at the top of the screen.
FCLD has numerous guides and videos for teaching with Blackboard, as well as a wide variety of other academic technologies. FCLD also offers orientations, workshops and 1:1 appointments with faculty and staff.