add remove tas

Educational Technology @ Missouri S&T BLACKBOARD 9.1: Add / Remove Teaching Assistants (TAs) -- 1 [email protected]

BLACKBOARD 9.1:Add / Remove Teaching Assistants (TAs)

NOTE: These instructions discuss how to add and remove a TA. However, these same instructions can easily be applied when adding or removing other users from the course, with some caveats (see below). For instance, adding a Course Builder is exactly the same process as adding a TA, except that the role selected is different. Many instructors want to add Teaching Assistants (TAs) into their courses in Blackboard. There is more than one way to do this:

1. When submitting course information to the Registrar, indicate the TAs for the course. The Registrar will then populate the course with the TAs for you inside of Blackboard, along with regular student enrollments. NOTE: This is the preferred course of action. EdTech fully supports instructors doing this FIRST, before attempting the second method below.

2. Add a TA manually yourself. The Registrar permits instructors to do this without negatively impacting the enrollment information in a course. IMPORTANT: The Registrar permits instructors to add TAs and other instructors, but the Registrar does NOT like people to do so. The Registrar PREFERS departments to notify the Registrar of all instructor and TA assignments for a course. The Registrar then takes care of enrolling them in the class in their role. WARNING: Dropping a student in a course through Blackboard, as opposed to allowing the Registrar to handle the process, can cause enrollment issues in a course. EdTech STRONGLY recommends all enrollments in a Blackboard course (both adds and drops, as well as role changes [i.e. student to TA]) be handled through the Registrar’s Office rather than through Blackboard.

Teaching Assistants in Blackboard have all the functionality of an instructor in the course. They can add and remove content. They can change grades in the Grade Center. However, they cannot remove an instructor or alter an instructor’s role in the course. Instructors can add and remove TAs. The following roles are available in a course:

Student – Default role for users. Students should only be enrolled in a course through the Registrar’s enrollment processes and NOT through Blackboard.

Instructor – The primary instructional role in the course. Instructors can add and remove all other users in a course.

Teaching Assistant (TA) – Secondary instructional role in the course. TA’s can add a remove other users, but cannot add or remove instructors. They have access to the Grade Center and can add or remove content.

Course Builder – This role allows the user to add or remove content to the course. Course Builders do NOT have access to the Grade Center.

Grader – The opposite of a Course Builder, Graders can access the Grade Center, but cannot add or remove content.

Guest – Guests have extremely limited access to the course materials. They cannot participate in any of the more interactive components of a course (such as discussion boards) and cannot submit assignments or other graded items.


ADD TAS INTO A COURSE

1. Navigate to the course where you want to add a TA.

2. Click Users and Groups in the Control Panel.

3. Click Users.

4. Click Find Users to Enroll.


5. Type in the Username for the user(s) to be added. Separate multiple usernames with a comma. Or click Browse to search for users based on Last Name or First Name. Only users that are NOT already enrolled in the course will show up in the search results.

6. Select the Role for any user(s) added from the drop-down list. NOTE: A TA attempting to add

users can only add users with the “Student” role. However, students should only be added through the normal Add/Drop process of course registration handled by the Registrar’s Office.

7. Click Submit. NOTE: To add a different user role, simply select that role from the list: Instructor, Course Builder, Grader, or Guest. Do NOT add Students to a course using this method.


CHANGE A STUDENT INTO A TA (OR OTHER ROLE) It is also possible to change a student’s role from Student into a TA. In other words, a student has been added to a course and needs to be promoted to a TA for that course, for some reason. Altering a student into a TA will keep that student enrolled in the course, independent of the Registrar’s enrollment status for that student in the course. WARNING: Changing a student’s role in a course can have severe repercussions for the student.

Once the student is changed into a TA, they will no longer appear in the Grade Center and will no longer be able to submit assignments or see their own grades (if they have any).

Students who are promoted to TAs are obliged to keep any confidential information about other students in class private, per FERPA regulations.

EdTech does NOT recommend instructors do this. The best practice is to contact the Registrar to have a student’s role changed from student to TA for the course.

1. Navigate to the course where you want to change a student’s role.


3. Click Users.


4. If you know the user who you want to change, use the Search boxes to find that user. If you want to see all the users in the course, select Not Blank from the second drop-down

list and click Go. This will show all of the users in the course, 25 users at a time.

5. Click the action link next to a user’s name.

6. Click Change User’s Role in Course.

7. Select the new role for the user.

8. Click Submit.


REMOVE A TA FROM A COURSE If you want to remove a TA from a course, the matter in which the TA is removed is dependent on how they were initially enrolled.

If the TA was enrolled by the Registrar, then contact the Registrar. The Registrar will remove the TA from teaching the course. The next time Blackboard talks to the Registrar’s database, that change will be reflected in Blackboard.

If the TA was enrolled manually, then you can un-enroll the TA yourself, following the steps below:

1. Navigate to the course where you want to remove a TA.


3. Click Users.

4. If you know the user who you want to change, use the Search boxes to find that user. If you want to see all the users in the course, select Not Blank from the second drop-down

list and click Go. This will show all of the users in the course, 25 users at a time.


5. Click the checkbox next to the TA’s name. Select multiple checkboxes if you need to remove multiple TAs from a course.

6. Click Remove Users from Course.

7. You will receive a warning message indicating the action is final and cannot be undone. Click OK to confirm. NOTE: Once a TA has been removed, you will need to add the TA manually again as outlined above.

add remove tas

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