TABLE OF CONTENTS

• About Content Visibility
• Make Content Available or Unavailable to Students
• Set Release Conditions
• Batch Edit

About Content Visibility

All content you create or copy from another course is hidden from students by default. You may change or update your content's visibility setting either when creating/editing the content or after the content appears in your course. 

Content may be hidden from students, visible to students, or you may set release conditions (release content by date, by users, or by student performance).

If your folder or learning module is hidden from students or set to release at a later time, your students will not be able to view the content inside of it, regardless of its visibility settings.

Make Content Available or Unavailable to Students

When creating or editing your content, click on the visibility drop-down menu to change its visibility status. You may make your content visible to students, hidden from students, or set release conditions.

You may also change the content availability directly from the course content page.  Click on the content visibility drop-down menu to change an item's visibility status. You may make your content visible to students, hidden from students, or set release conditions. 

Set Release Conditions

You can set Release Conditions to determine who has access to content and when. You can set Release Conditions for any item in your Course Content, including Learning Modules, Folders, Ultra Documents, Assignments, Tests, and more. 

The Release Conditions in Blackboard Ultra tutorial video will walk you through setting Release Conditions. 

Create Release Conditions

Locate your item and click on the visibility drop-down menu. Select Release Conditions.

Next, you will create the Rule or Rules for your Release Conditions. 

Under Select Members, choose which course members or groups have access to the content. You can select All Members to release the content at the same time to everyone in the course. Or select individual students or groups.

To release your content at a specific date and time, select Date/Time and enter your date criteria. 

• Access From: This is the date and time your content will become available.
• Access To: The content will no longer be available after this date and time. Leaving this area blank will ensure that the content remains available for the duration of the course lifecycle.

To release content when a student meets certain criteria, such as submitting an assignment or scoring above a certain threshold on a test, select Performance. Choose the gradable item and the requirement (ex score above 80 points on a quiz).

Click Save to save your rule. You may add additional rules as needed.

Release Conditions for Different Scenarios

Here are some common scenarios that faculty tend to encounter and how to set release conditions to meet these needs.

Scenario 1: Release content each week

• Scenario: You have added content to your course but you only want students to work on one section at a time to ensure that they don't get too far ahead or to ensure that you have plenty of time to discuss upcoming work in class.
• Solution: For each section (ex Learning Module, Folder, etc.), create a rule to release content to All Members at a specified date and time (ex Friday at 8AM). Repeat this for each section.

Scenario 2: Student requires early access 

• Scenario: You release your content weekly, but one of your students has an accommodation letter requiring access to course materials one week in advance. 
• Solution: You will set two rules for your Release Conditions. 
  • Rule 1: Under Select Members, select your student(s) who needs early access. Next, enter the Access From date. Your student will be able to access the course content at this date and time.
  • Rule 2: Under Select Members, select All Members. Next, enter the Access From date. The rest of the class will be able to access the course content at this date and time.

Scenario 3: Demonstrate Understanding

• Scenario: Students must demonstrate understanding before moving on to the next topic in the course. You want students to move on to the next topic only after they score a B or above on a quiz.  
• Solution: You will create a Performance rule. Create a rule create a rule to release content to All Members. Next, select Performance and choose the quiz and the requirement (ex score above 80 points).

Visibility Settings

Once you have saved your Rule(s), you can choose whether you want content to be visible to your before or after they meet requirements for access. In the When will content appear? area, select Show or Hide.

If you set your visibility to Show, students can view the item and description, if applicable, the first condition they need to meet, and when they can no longer access it (if applicable). If multiple conditions are set per item, students should be informed of all criteria they need to meet, as only the first condition will be displayed. 

Example of a student's view of a Learning Module with date/time release conditions:

If you set your visibility to Hide, the content does not appear on the Course Content page at all.

Batch Edit

When you create new content or copy individual content into your Ultra course, all content will default to Hidden from Students. You may adjust the visibility for these items one at a time or use the Batch Edit tool to update them all at once.

On the Course Content page, click on the Options Menu (three dots on the right side of the page) and select Batch Edit. 

This will bring you to the Batch Edit page. Click the check box next to the items you want to update. You can choose entire Folders or Learning Modules, or individual items. If you select an entire Folder or Learning Module, all items within it will also be selected. You may click to open a Folder or Learning Module in order to select individual items within it.

Once you have selected your items you may:

• Edit Dates: Edit due dates on selected items. You may change the dates by a select number of days, based on course start, or change to a specific date/time.
• Edit Visibility: Choose whether to show or hide the selected items for students. This is especially useful if you copied content from a previous course or did not update your visibility settings when creating content.
• Delete Items: Delete all selected items.

For more information, go to the Batch Edit support article or watch the Batch Edit tutorial video.