What is happening?
In an effort to streamline the Blackboard course creation workflow, a new automated process will be implemented in 2026 which will mean that all Blackboard Si-Net scheduled courses will be created ~6 months before teaching commences. At the point of creation, all content and staff enrolments will be automatically copied from the last complete teaching period, e.g. semester 1 content will be copied to the semester 1 course for the following year.
In addition to the automated copy process, a self-serve tool will be implemented which will allow staff to manually correct content and staff enrolments if these are required from a different teaching period to the default. For example, if content is needing to be copied from the last time an academic taught their course, they can nominate which teaching period they wish content and staff enrolments to be copied from. The self-serve tool will also provide staff with the opportunity to identify if their course requires merging, or needs a connected UQ Extend site.
When will this be happening?
The course copy automation is predicted to be in place by July 2026, with Summer Semester 2026 courses to be the first teaching period to be created and populated using the new workflow.
Considerations
The following are points of consideration, and will be updated as new items are discovered throughout the project:
- The new automation will only apply to Si-Net scheduled courses. Non Si-Net courses, and organisation/community sites will continue to be created manually via the existing process.