LMS Basics 101

Overview

Once you have access to a course, you can use the LMS Basics below to setup the course.

Procedures

To log into the LMS (Blackboard) go to https://lms.rpi.edu

1. Enter your Username, which is the beginning part of your RPI email address, up to but not including the @ sign
2. Enter your password
3. Click Login

You will be brought to the LMS Main page

In the middle of the page, you will see the heading My Courses

My Courses contains a list of courses separated by Role. Courses where you are listed as Instructor appear first. If you are a Teaching Assistant in any course, those courses will be listed under “Courses where you are: Teaching Assistant and so forth.

To access a course:

1. Click on the name of the course under the My Courses section.

You will then see the course landing page.

Navigating your course:

The left-hand menu in a course has two general areas:

• The Course Menu at the top, has links to all parts of the course that you want the students to be able to access. You can add Content Areas, Web Links, etc to the menu to assist the students in navigating your course.
• The bottom area labeled Course Management Control Panel is for Instructors and Teaching Assistants only. This is the behind-the-scenes controls of the course.

Instructors may change the Course Menu view, add additional links, and reorder and manage existing links. A course menu link, if set to Show Link, makes that menu item visible to students to access.

Getting Started

The recommendation for organizing your LMS course is to follow your Syllabus. However, you have outlined your course in the syllabus, is how you should organize the content in your LMS course. For example, if your syllabus outlines the course by week, repeat the same weekly structure in the LMS.

In order to add or change course content, you need to make sure Edit Mode is ON, which is located in the upper right-hand corner of your course.

1. Rename the menu item labeled Content to Lecture Notes by clicking the drop-down arrow to the right of the menu name. A pop-out menu will appear.
2. Scroll to and click Rename Link.
3. The menu item name, Content will be highlighted. Type in the new name Lecture Notes and either press Enter or click on the green check mark to the right of the menu name.

The menu item has been renamed Lecture Notes.

Adding items to the Menu

For ease of navigation, we will add items to the Menu.

1. To Add to the course menu hover over the + sign located in the upper left-corner of the menu. A pop-out menu will appear.
2. Scroll to and select Blank Page. A Blank Page is a page you can create that contains a Page Title, text and/or attachments. We will use a Blank Page to add the Syllabus.
3. The Add Blank Page pop-out will display. Enter the name of the blank page, Syllabus and click the checkbox to the left of Available to Users. If you don’t check this box, the students won’t be able to see the menu item. Click Submit to save the Blank Page/Syllabus to the course menu.
4. The Blank Page options will appear on the right side of the screen. Scroll down and locate the Attachments Attach Files section. Click Browse My Computer. A window will pop up where you can navigate to the Syllabus on your computer. Once the file is located, either double click the file or single click and then click Open.

Note: the recommended file type for your syllabus  is a .pdf document.

Another option is to drag the file from your computer into the dashed line area in the Attach Files area and click submit.

Adding Content Areas to the Menu

Next we will add Content Areas to the menu. Content Areas are top-level containers that organize links to content within the course such as lecture notes, assignments and tests.

We will add a Content Area for Assignments and another Content Area for Quizzes & Tests.

1. To Add a Content Area, *hover over the + sign located in the upper left-corner of the menu. A pop-out menu will appear. Scroll to and select Content Area.
2. The Add Content Area pop-out will display. Enter the name of the content area, Assignments, click the checkbox to the left of Available to Users. If you don’t check this box, the students won’t be able to see the menu item. Click Submit to save Lecture notes to the course menu.

*Repeat the above steps to create a Content Area for Quizzes & Tests.

Last Reviewed: 15-Mar-2020