New Online Form Available to Request Merge of Blackboard Course Shells

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 16:47:45 -0400
blackboard, course-creation, course-shells, fa2025, form, merge, split, split-merge

DoIT is pleased to announce a new form to help faculty manage their Blackboard course shells with greater efficiency. As part of our ongoing updates to the course creation and enrollment process, announced earlier this year for Summer 2025, this new form simplifies requests to merge or remove Blackboard course shells from the instructor’s Blackboard dashboard.

The new Blackboard Course Merge or Removal form (UMBC login required) allows instructors to:

Combine multiple courses into one shell for the current term

Request the removal of unused course shells that you do not plan to use

Faculty who want to merge their courses must submit a request using this form at least one week before the semester starts to ensure timely processing and reduce impact on student learning.

How the form and updated process works

Image 1: The new request form prompts users to indicate whether they would like to merge or remove courses.

By automatically displaying an instructor’s list of courses for the upcoming term, the new form is designed to simplify instructor workflows and is the next step towards automating instructors’ course merge requests.

Image 2: The form displays a list of courses based on an instructor’s course assignments in the Schedule of Classes

The form will automatically open a ticket with the Instructional Technology team to process the request. Most requests are processed fairly quickly, but instructors should allow one business day if tickets are submitted overnight or on weekends.

Getting more information

To support a smooth transition, Instructional Technology will host an information session about updates to the course creation and enrollment process at the start of the fall semester. We encourage faculty to attend this session to learn more about the new course creation process or share feedback online.

The latest update to our course creation and enrollment process marks another step toward greater self-service for faculty. Additionally, the functional changes lay the necessary groundwork for future integrations required for grade export from Blackboard to PeopleSoft. Continued refinements are expected based on faculty feedback and ongoing development planned by DoIT to provide improved automation.

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