Overview
Faculty have the option of requesting that multiple sections of the same course be merged into one course space in Blackboard (these will remain separate sections in Self-Service). Enrollments from multiple sections will be merged into a new course space in Blackboard, and the original course spaces will become unavailable. This is recommended if all of the course material and all of the assignments will be the same for all the sections. All students will have access to the same course space.
There are several issues to consider when deciding whether to merge sections. One important issue is that if students from multiple sections are combined into a single section, they will all appear in the same Grade Center; it is not possible to have multiple Grade Center files in a single course space. If you will be giving out different assignments to the different sections or need to have a different curve in each section, then you will not want to have the sections merged. Please make this request as early as possible; if there are already grades in the Grade Center, then the courses cannot be merged because the grades will not copy over to the new merged course.
If you decide not to have multiple sections merged but still need to post the same documents to all sections, it is easy to do that with the Copy/Move option in the Edit menu (for individual items or folders) or the Copy Course feature in the Course Management area (for entire course areas). You can use these features to copy material from a previous course to a new one or from one section to another.
If the different sections of a course to be merged have different instructors who are not all listed on every section (for example, in a team-taught course or for multiple lab sections), please e-mail blackboard@hamilton.edu instead of filling out the form.
Ticket Information
Who may request this service?
This service may be requested by Hamilton faculty with Blackboard courses.
Additional Assistance
If you have any questions about this service, please contact blackboard@hamilton.edu for further assistance.