To fully comply with the FERPA requirements, the Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost announced that the option to manually add users to Blackboard courses has been removed effective March 1, 2023.
In order to access Blackboard course sites, Instructors, Co-Instructors, and Teaching Assistants must be listed officially on CUNYfirst, CUNY GLOBAL SEARCH.
The Instructor of Record or Department Chair should use this form Request to Add Personnel to a Course in the Learning Management System to add Peer Observers, Co-Instructors, Teaching Assistants, College Assistants, Department Coordinators, Instructional Designers, or Librarians to Your Blackboard Course with the appropriate roles. The roles are described in the table below:
| Role | Description |
| Course Builder | The Course Builder role has access to most areas of the course or organization Control Panel. This role is appropriate for an assistant who should not have access to student grades.
If the course is unavailable to students, a course builder can still access the course. The course builder can’t remove an instructor from a course. |
| Facilitator | The Facilitator role has default privileges related to course materials, gradebook, calendar, announcements, discussions, and groups to assist instructors in the progress of a course.
Many institutions use Subject Matter Experts to create content for large, multi-section courses that are facilitated by multiple faculty. These institutions or courses may also require more than one person to help keep the curriculum moving forward. Additionally, institution administrators can grant some or all grading, curriculum set up, and communication permissions to trusted facilitators to help ease these responsibilities in larger courses. |
| Grader | The Grader role has limited access to the course Control Panel. Graders can assist an instructor in the creation, management, delivery, and grading of assessments and surveys. The grader may also assist an instructor with adding manual entries to the Grade Center.
If a course is unavailable to students, the course appears in the My Courses module and in the course list for a user with the role of Grader. However, the grader can’t enter the course until the course is available. As part of the delegation grading workflow, instructors can assign the ability to reconcile grades to graders. |
| Guest | The Guest role allows prospective students, alumni, and parents to explore Blackboard Learn without making any changes to users, courses, or content. Users with the role of Guest are unauthenticated users.
If an administrator has enabled guest access, instructors can make areas within a course accessible to unauthenticated users. Guest users do not have access to the course or organization Control Panel. |
| Instructor | Instructors have full access to the course Control Panel. This role is generally assigned to the person developing, teaching, or facilitating the class. If a course is unavailable to students, users with the Instructor role may still access it. The instructor is included in the course description in the Course Catalog. |
| Student | Student is the default course user role. A user with the role of Student has no access to the course Control Panel. |
| Teaching Assistant | Users with the Teaching Assistant role have access to most of the course Control Panel. If the course is unavailable to students, teaching assistants may still access the course.
The teaching assistant is not included in the course description in the Course Catalog. Teaching assistants can’t remove an instructor from a course. |
Excerpt from Course and Organization Roles (blackboard.com)