Blackboard Discussion Board Groups

Group Basics

Note: not all instructors use Groups. CNU courses use Groups in this manner:

• Private communication within Blackboard. The Discussion Board is public, and emails are not stored as a part of a Blackboard course.
• Group members are generally limited to one student and the instructor
• Group Tools:
  • Group Discussion Board
  • Group File Exchange (not widely used)

Group Participation

The Group tool is generally located in the Interactivity Area. For a group to exist, it must be set up by the instructor or a System Administrator. If your instructor is using groups, you can access them by:

1. Click on the Interactivity menu item
2. If your instructor uses groups, you will see a link to the Groups tool
3. Click on the link
   
   
   
   
4. You now will see a list of groups. Any group that you are a member of will display as a link. The other groups will be text
   
   
   
   
5. Click on your Group name
6. This next screen shows the available tools and the members of the group.
   
   
7. To use the Discussion Board, click on the link. The group Discussion Board is just like the course Discussion Board, except only group members can use it.
8. The File Exchange tool is only rarely used. Click on the File Exchange link. On this screen is located a Add File button and a list of group files.
   
   
9. To add a file, click on the Add File button, give the uploaded file a name, browse for the file, and click the Submit button
   
   
   
   
10. To view a file, click on the file name (see the illustration from step 8).

Creating Groups (Instructors)

CNU uses groups to faciliate private communication within Blackboard.

1. Go to the Control Panel.
2. Under User Management, then click on Manage Groups.
3. Click the Add Group button. The Add Group screen has three parts
   

   Group Information
   Give the group a name, and add an optional descrition
   
   

   Group Options
   Select the features for this group. Please note that the only two options available to you are Group Discussion Board and Group File Exchange
   
   
   Submit
   Click on the Submit button.

Adding Members to a Group (Instructors)

1. Go to the Control Panel.
2. Under User Management, then click on Manage Groups.
   
   
3. Under the name of each group, you will see a list of the available tools.
4. Click on the Modify button. Do not remove a group. CNU is required to maintain this information.
   
   
5. Click on the Add Users to Group link.
6. The group members have to be searched for. For CNU courses the easiest way is to List All. Click on this tab
   
   
7. Confirm that you want to list all.
8. There are check boxes beside the names of all the participants in the course. Select the group members by clicking in these boxes
   
   
9. Click on the Submit button to accept the group members

Group Settings (Instructors)

1. Go to the Control Panel.
2. Under User Management, click on Manage Groups.
3. Click on the Modify button. Do not remove a group. CNU is required to maintain this information.
4. Besides Adding Users to the Group, you have three other options
   1. Group Properties
      you can change any of the properties that you used in first creating the group
   2. List Users
      Using the Search function, you can list the members of the group
   3. Remove Users from Group
      Do not remove users. CNU is required to maintain this information.