csusb blackboard services

How to Navigate Blackboard for Students

Log in to Blackboard (Bb) on the CSUSB website via your student ID number and password.

Discussion Board

This is the interface of a discussion board page. This allows students and professors to talk based on prompts or to discuss questions with professors or other students. Some may even be graded for your individual term grades. Information regarding how to use it will be discussed in a different web page.

Assignments

This is an assignments page that lists needed assignments to complete. They usually have links that may give a downloadable rubric for the assignment, a webpage to read, or a video to watch for the assignment needed.

Tests

Blackboard also has the ability to assign tests which aside from essay questions are automatically graded. Information regarding taking tests will be explained in another web page.

Modules

Some professors chunk lesson units into lesson modules, which are scaffolded and grouped by topic or increase of difficulty.

Tools

Tools are help software that help you in a class or gives additional support. Each will be discussed in greater detail later. Not all will be needed for most of your purposes. Among the most important are My Grades, Announcements, Blackboard Help for Students, Calendar, and Contacts.

My Grades

The grades tab can be found in tools. Sometimes a professor will make it a separate tab on the side panel on the left. If not, it will always be in tools. Here you can see the grades earned, assignments coming up the professor chooses to share, and shows assignments that are completed but still need to be graded by the professor.

Blackboard Tasks

Tasks are located in two places. First is the tools section of a main Blackboard webpage.

Location

Tasks are located in two places. First is the tools section of a main Blackboard webpage.

Forums

When clicking on it, there will be a button called create a forum, in which one topic will be discussed.

Threads

Clicking on a forum will take you to the threads page. A thread is a subsection of the forum, all talking about the topic created for the forum. Click on create thread to start one of your own.

Responding to Threads

After typing a thread, it is possible for yourself to edit it, delete it, quote it for later use, or respond to it. Others can see your thread and respond to it as well. Some professors may require you to post a thread, respond to other threads from other students, and respond to threads in your own thread they had a response for.