The calendar displays a consolidated view of all your institution, course, organization, and personal calendar events. You can view events by day, week, or month. You can view and organize upcoming and past events into categories.

You can also set the first day of your week by changing your personal settings in My Blackboard.

Course calendar events appear to all members of the course. Common entries include upcoming tests, due dates for assignments, or special lectures. Course items with due dates automatically appear in the course calendar. Only instructors may create course calendar events.

The Calendar Interface

Click Tools in the left menu as shown in the image below.

  

A.   View events by day, week, or month.
B.   Navigate to another month.
C.   Click the plus (+) to create a new event. You can also click a date to create an event. Assign the event to the appropriate calendar, select the date and time, and add a description.

Students cannot create an event on a course and institution calendar. Instructors cannot create an event for the institution calendar unless they have administrator privileges.

D.   Click an event to manage it. You can also press and drag an event to change the date.
E.   Select the calendars you want to show, such as institution, personal, or course. By default, all calendars are visible. Optionally, change the color of each calendar to suit your preference. Using a distinct color for each calendar easily displays which calendar the event is associated to without opening the event.

All institution events appear in the institution calendar. All course events, such as assignments due, appear in the course calendar. If your system administrator has upgraded to the October 2014 release, any courses you hide in the My Courses module on the My Institution page, will also be hidden in the Calendars list.

F.   Get an iCal URL for importing your Blackboard Learn calendar into an external calendar application. After the Learn iCal URL is set up in an external calendar, it is updated dynamically with new Learn calendar events. For example, log in to Google Calendar and access the Other Calendar drop-down list. Select Add by URL and paste the iCal URL generated by Blackboard Learn.

You cannot import external calendars into this calendar.

How to Create an Event

  1. On the calendar, click the plus (+) to create a new event. You can also click a specific date to create an event.
  2. Type the New Event Name.
  3. Select a calendar to associate the event to, such as your personal calendar.

    Only instructors and administrators can add events to the course and institution calendars.

  4. Select the Start and End times.
  5. Type the Event Description. There is a 4,000 character limit for event descriptions.
  6. Click Save.

Recurring Events

Optionally, you can make events repeat by selecting the Repeat check box. Additional options appear that allow you to create multiple events based on a repeating pattern.

Specifics on Repeating Events and Limitations

 
Repeat Options Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Supported
Daily End after X number of times -OR- on a particular date.
Weekly Repeat Day of the week supported. End after X number of times -OR- on a particular date.
Monthly Repeat Day of the month (1-31) or day of week (first Sunday, second Monday, and so on) supported. End after X number of times -OR- on a particular date.
Bulk Add (Series) Create a series with the repeat options.
Bulk Delete (Series) Delete the entire series created using the repeat options.
Edit an Instance Edit an instance of the series. If you change the date/time of the instance, that particular instance has a “broken” icon to indicate that it no longer conforms with the original series rules.

Changing the name or description of an instance does not break the instance from the series.

Edit Series (Known Limitation) At this time, you cannot edit the series. After you create a series, you can bulk delete or make changes to individual instance.

Edit or Delete an Event

On the calendar, navigate to the date of the event in the main view to perform the following tasks:

  • Click the event to edit or delete it.
  • Press and drag an event to another date in the main view to change the date of the event. The time of the event and calendar it is associated with remain the same.
  • Press and drag an event from the main view to another date on the smaller monthly view to change the date as illustrated in the image below.


Calendar Display Modes

You can choose from four calendar display modes:

  • Gregorian only
  • Gregorian-formatted with Hirji date conversion in parentheses
  • Hijri only
  • Hijri-formatted with Gregorian date conversion in parentheses