Learn about Blackboard Community sites...

Blackboard Communities, also called "organizations" (found in the UST Community tab on the MyUST portal) are intended for use by formal and informal organizations within the university that would like web space for information sharing, collaboration and communication. A student club, faculty committee, or administrative department may elect to use a Blackboard organization in order to post announcements, create an organizational calendar, share documents, convene a threaded discussion, and meet in a virtual classroom.

The software functions the same as the Course software, with a few different naming conventions to fit community definitions vs. course definitions. A UST username and password are required to access Blackboard communities. The Blackboard communities are intended primarily for use by faculty, staff, and degree-seeking students of the university.

Like other communities, on-line communities flourish and grow through the attention of community members to one another. Each organization has a manager who is responsible for the activity of the community site. Codes of conduct that guide student and employee behavior apply here as well. All requests by students for organization sites will be directed to the division of Student Affairs for review and resolution.

Community Site Enrollment options

• Manager Lead Only (manager enrolls users manually)
• Manager Lead with email notification
• Participant Lead (participants enrolls themselves)

Community Site Browse Access

• If you simply would like visitors to browser your content like a Web page, managers can open certain sections of the Community site. Managers can open the content areas to any person with web access through the Control Panel, by clicking Course Settings, Area Availability, then de-select the areas you would like to open under the Secure column.
• If you want members to use the Discussion Board, Quiz feature, Virtual Chat you must use some type of enrollment option.

If you would like to schedule an appointment or find out more about what we can do to assist you, please contact your Academic Technology Consultant or local IRT Consultant. If you wish, you can contact them through this online form.
Click here to request a community site.