Advanced Course Menu - Course Menu Views

The course menu appears on the upper-left side of your screen and contains links to course materials and tools within the course.  Instructors can customize the appearance of the course menu and in addition to this, all course participants can choose from different course menu views when working in a Blackboard course. Options for viewing the course menu from 'student view' (when Edit Mode is off) include:

  • List View
  • Folder View
  • Displaying Course Menu in a Window
  • Refresh Course Menu
  • Collapse Course Menu
  • Go to Course Entry Page
  • Hide Course Menu
     

Course Menu from the Student View

The appearance of the menu area changes in Edit Mode. Instructors have access to the following features:

  • Plus or Create Item button
  • List View
  • Folder View
  • Displaying Course Menu in a Window
  • Refresh
  • Keyboard Accessible Reordering
  • Go to Course Entry Page
  • Collapse Course Menu
  • Hide Course Menu
  • Dual arrows for reordering menu items
  • Options menu for editing menu items
  • Visual indicators to show when a menu item is hidden or unavailable to students
     

Course Menu from the Instructor View

Description of the different course menu features

When accessing a course in Blackboard, the default course menu view is always on the List View. To switch from one to another view, users just need to click on the appropriate button.

Plus or Create Menu Item button - Click on this button to create a new content area, tool link, course link, module page, subheader or divider on your menu.

List View - Displays top-level of course materials. Links may be displayed as buttons or text.

Folder View - This view expands to show the hierarchy of course navigation. Using the Folder View makes it easier to locate specific items that can be buried deep within the course. Because of this feature it is very advantageous using descriptive names for every item added to a course.

Refresh course menu - Allows for refreshing the course menu if there is a problem with displaying it. I.e. newly added menu items may not appear for several minutes. Users can use the Refresh button to make them appear immediately.

Keyboard Accessible Reordering - This button allows for using the keyboard to reorder items.

Visual indicator for hidden item - The icon (beside Course Information) indicates that this content area is currently empty and not visible to students until any type of content has been added within this course area.

Visual indicator for unavailable item - The icon (beside Email) indicates the menu item is hidden to students. To make it available, select “Show Link” from the Options drop-down menu to the right.

Dual arrows in front of each menu item - These icons allow you to reorder items. Drag and drop an item to move it up or down on the menu.

Options drop-down menu to the right of each menu item - This menu allows for easy editing of each already-existing menu item. Options include: Rename, Delete, Hide/Show menu links.