Policy for creating Blackboard Organisations

What is an Organisation? 

Organisations are Blackboard sites for non-academic purposes. They have the same functionality as a Blackboard Course and can be used to provide information, online training, and access to materials.  

Organisations should not be used for course-based activities, unless this has been specifically agreed by the Digital Education Group (DEG). Organisations will not be created for any modules that exist in the Module Management System.  

Some Organisations are created automatically but new Organisations can be requested from the DEG.  

We can set up feeds to your Organisation to automatically place staff or students on them as Participants (see Enrolment Options below).  

Who Can Request 

Any member of staff can request an Organisation but must have the agreement of their head of department, or senior project sponsor.  

All orgs should have at least 2 members of staff as leaders as part of the creation process. 

We recommend that you contact the DEG (elearning@aber.ac.uk) to discuss your requirements before making a request.  

Departmental Organisations 

All departments have an Organisation for staff and any UG or PG students in their department.  

These are in the form: 

DEPT-[departmental letter]-UG-O (eg DEPT-N-UG) 

These Organisations are created automatically with the relevant participants automatically feeding onto the organisation. 

New students and staff members will feed onto the organisation once they have activated their account.  

If you need different access to an organisation, for example, if you need Leader access to your departmental staff organisation, contact DEG (elearning@aber.ac.uk).  

Requesting a New Organisation 

All requests will be considered by the DEG following these guidelines. The DEG Manager (or their deputy) will make the final decision on creating a new Organisation.  

Requests for Organisations for sub-sets of students or staff within a department. (e.g., all final year students, all research staff) will not usually be approved. Requests for Organisations for the same set of students or staff on an existing organisation will not usually be approved. 

This is to reduce the number of locations for users to look at. The DEG can advise on how access to resources can be managed through departmental existing Organisations, using tools such as Groups. 

All requests for Organisations to deliver mandatory training or induction for all staff and/or students will be asked to consider whether an existing Organisation can be used. This is to minimise the number of sites staff and students have to look at. 

Requests for separate Welsh and English Organisations for the same information or project will not normally be approved. We advise creating bilingual Organisations so that users can easily switch between languages. This also makes sure that both Welsh and English materials can be updated at the same time. The DEG can advise on ways of arranging bilingual content. 

What Information is Required 

When requesting a new Organisation, please provide the following details 

• Name, email and department of requester 

• Name of Organisation (bilingually where appropriate) 

• Purpose of Organisation 

• Enrolments for Organisation (see below Enrolment Options) 

• Other staff member(s) to be included as Leaders on the Organisation 

• Approval from HoD 

Once a request has been received, the DEG will reply within 3 working days. More information may be required, and we may ask to meet to discuss requirements before the Organisation is created.  

Review process 

All Organisations will be reviewed every summer, and leaders will be asked to confirm that the Organisation is still required. Organisations which aren’t automatically created and haven’t been accessed by Participants for 2 years will be made unavailable. DEG will contact the leaders to confirm that it is no longer needed.  

Leaders must contact the DEG if: 

1. the Organisation is no longer needed; 

1. leaders change role within AU or leave the university. 

Enrolment Options 

The following groups of users can be added to an Organisation. If this list does not contain your enrolment requirements, please contact the DEG to discuss options. We cannot guarantee that enrolment options outside this list will be available. Card categories and campuses are further explained below. 

In most cases users will be added as participants on the organisation. 

Enrolment Type	Who is included	Example	User Roles available
Department	All staff and students in one or more departments	All staff and students in Life Science	Participant only
Study Scheme	All students on all years of a study scheme	All students on scheme N400	Participant only
Campus and card category	All users on a specified campus with specified card category	All PGCE students studying on the Aberystwyth campus	All Blackboard roles
Card category all campuses	All specified card category users across all campuses	All External Examiners	Participant only
Card category and year of study	All students with specified card category by year of study	All third year students on a franchise course	Participant only

 

Card Categories are used by Information Services to provide different levels of access to resources and services. There are a large number of card categories, but some examples are below. If you want to enrol a specific set of users on your Organisation please discuss your requirements with the LTEU: 

• Aber Workers 

• PG Taught students 

• PG Research students 

• Lifelong Learning students 

• PGCE students 

• External Examiners 

• Franchise students 

Campuses are relevant to franchise provision – if you wish to enrol users from a franchise onto an Organisation, please discuss your requirements with the DEG. 

 

Required Minimum Presence for Organisations 

All Organisations are different and serve different purposes. However, there are some items that are required for all Organisations (note that this doesn't apply to staff Practice Courses). These are based on Required Minimum Presence (RMP) for Blackboard courses. 

• Contact Information. The Organisation should include details of who to contact if participants who have queries, and when participants can expect a response. 

• Information about the purpose of the Organisation and how participants are expected to use it 

• Content is organised clearly, and all materials are named clearly and consistently. 

• Content is up-to-date. 

• Clear instructions for participants on what to do with materials  

• All materials must be as accessible as possible. If some items cannot be made fully accessible, explain why and what participants can do to request more accessible options. See AU Guidance on Creating Accessible Learning Materials for more information.