Getting Started

Ensure Student Access

Ryerson's student system will automatically add registered students to your course, based on their registration in one of your course section(s). Students are not to be added manually (i.e. by the instructor or t.a), as this will interfere with our student loading system and can cause irreparable problems in your course.

In order to give your students access to your course, you must do the following:

1. Submit your Section Numbers to Blackboard Admin
2. Set Your Course to 'Available'
3. Students and Blackboard

1. Submit your Section Numbers to Blackboard Admin

All you need to do is provide Blackboard Admin with the section number(s) for the students you will be teaching. Students cannot be loaded without the section number(s).

Section numbers can be submitted during your course request, or they can be emailed to courses@ryerson.ca. Please do not send us your student list, or the date and time your class is scheduled for.

Please verify your section numbers with your department prior to sending them to us. A mistake in a section number can cause problems in your course!!

What is a section number?
Each course is divided into sections - this way, students can be identified as a group. Even if there is only one group of students, there is a section number.

Not sure what your sections are? Please contact your department.

Continuing Education Courses
Courses run through Continuing Education (including Distance Education Unit) have 7-digit course codes that begin with a C - such as CITM 100, CKPM 202, etc. If you forget to indicate the C when requesting your course, the combination of section number and coursecode will not match - and your students cannot be loaded.

2. Set Your Course to 'Available'

You may notice that some of your newly created courses say 'Unavailable' next to the title, in your Blackboard course listing. This means that your course is unavailable to your students, while remaining available to anyone with designer access.

Blackboard courses are not available to students until you change the availability settings.

In your Blackboard course:

1. Go to Control Panel > Customization > Properties
2. On this page, you will see a section called Set Availability. Select the radio button to the left of YES.
3. Click the ‘Submit’ button to finish.

3. Students and Blackboard

Here are a few quick answers to some of the questions instructors have about getting their students started with Blackboard.

Where do the students find out how to login to Blackboard?

• By their instructor: We highly recommend that instructors take the time to introduce their students to their course site by showing it to them in class.

• From the Website: Many students know that they have online components on Blackboard, and can find out the URL for the website from many sources (including the www.ryerson.ca, some school communications, etc.). Here, they are given information on how to login, how to determine their username and what technical requirements are needed to access Blackboard from home or school.

Where do students get technical support for Blackboard?

Please see the contact info on this page for details.

As students and faculty receive support from different groups here at Ryerson, we ask that students not be directed to contact the Faculty & Staff support team or the DMP. These support people will simply forward them to the student support, which may add frustration and wait time to the process for the student.