Requesting Courses - Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. You may request Blackboard courses for all your semester classes using the Blackboard Faculty Tools (BFT).

Your department office has to enter you in MyNIU as the instructor of record for the courses you are assigned to teach. Please contact your department office to make this assignment in MyNIU. After the assignment is processed in MyNIU, you will be able to request the courses using the Blackboard Faculty Tools (BFT). Note: It may take up to one business day for the course to be listed in the Blackboard Faculty Tools.

It also has to be within 100 days from the start date for you to be able to request a course. This is to ensure that the schedule is finalized and minimize the risk of one faculty member from starting to build a course that is then assigned to someone else.

If you have students under your supervision who are working on a thesis, graduate project, dissertation, or an independent study and you’d like to use Blackboard Learn to facilitate the work, the best method is to ask your department to set up a section of the associated course in MyNIU with you as the instructor of record. Often, these courses are scheduled with a single section under the department chair, but that limits your ability to use university resources, like Blackboard, to work with your students.

If your department creates a section for you, then students can register directly to your section of the thesis, project, dissertation, or independent study course. You will also be able to request a course in Blackboard, like you would for a more traditional course.

It is recommended that the department create course sections for each faculty member in the department for each of these types of courses, every semester. This will automatically allow any faculty member to request the Blackboard course for those purposes. 

Courses are available to request in Blackboard anytime within 100 days from the start of the semester, but not prior.