Welcome to the UAF Blackboard Course Management System



Summer 2008 Student Enrollments Loaded

April 28, 2008
Students are automatically enrolled daily into Blackboard course shells for the Summer 2008 semester.

Automatic enrollment in a course shell requires the student to be enrolled with the registrar and assigned an active email address. This automated process can take up to 48 hours to complete.

Students will only have access to courses that their instructor has enabled. Courses for the 200802 term have been created as Unavailable, and they will not be visible to the students until the instructor changes the course status to Available.

Your user-id is based on your UA Username. Look up your UA Username.
Your Login ID has changed

One of the biggest complaints we hear from users is about the vast number of UserIDs that a person must have to access UAF computing resources. As part of a comprehensive plan to reduce that number, as of April 8, 2008, Blackboard has changed to using your UA Username. Your password did not change. If you do not know your UA Username, you can look it up... Look up your UA Username. If you use Blackboard through the MyUA portal, this change will be seamless.

During the Summer of 2008, Blackboard will be fully integrated into AuthServ, UA's central authentication service.

What other applications use AuthServ? EDIR, MyUA, INBRE, AuthServ, SW Helpdesk, OrientExpress, CRCD, SW OIR, UAF Roxen, and more are in testing. UAF is integrating more and more applications to a centralized authentication system in a continuing effort to reduce the overall number of IDs and passwords you have to memorize. (Each application using AuthServ uses your same username and password pair.)

If you have questions regarding the upcoming change, please contact Karl Kowalski, Executive Director of User Services at 450-8440.

Blackboard Through the MyUA Portal

Have you tried accessing Blackboard through MyUA, yet? If not, you should check it out. Why? Because, when you access Blackboard through the MyUA Portal, your classes automatically show up in the "My Courses" channel and the course calendar.

My Courses Channel – With the move to UA Username, now seems like a great time to try getting to Blackboard through MyUA. It's clever because MyUA already knows your UA Username. Signing into Blackboard through MyUA is simple. You just enter your UAF Blackboard password the first time you use the My Courses channel and it remembers your password until you decide to change it. Once you've done that, you just click on Blackboard from inside MyUA and it signs you in automatically!

The My Courses channel gives you direct access to all of the courses you are attending. If you are taking courses from multiple campuses, all your courses can be accessed within this one channel. Ask your fellow students if they already use this feature. Give it a try, and see if you like the advantages of getting to Blackboard through MyUA. If you decide it's not for you, you can still sign in directly to Blackboard the old way.

Course Calendar – The MyUA Portal sets up a calendar for each of your classes—helping you to organize your life. You can even combine them with your personal and group calendars to further organize your day.

What else can MyUA simplify for you? Well, you can get to your UAOnline information through MyUA too.

Why not try it? Go ahead and see how you like accessing Blackboard and UAOnline from inside MyUA! It's just a quick little adventure with nothing to lose but lots to gain.



Summer 2008 Courses Loaded

March 7, 2008
Summer 2008 (200802) courses have been loaded into Blackboard.

Courses and instructors are automatically populated in Blackboard daily. Courses for the 200802 term have been created as Unavailable. If you are planning to use Blackboard this coming Summer semester, please verify that the courses you are instructing exist.

Students will be automatically enrolled in courses starting May 1, 2008.

Instructors that require course stacking or copying please see the directions below.



Spring 2008 Student Enrollments Loaded

January 4, 2008
Students are automatically enrolled daily into Blackboard course shells for the Spring 2008 semester.

Automatic enrollment in a course shell requires the student to be enrolled with the registrar and assigned an active email address. This automated process can take up to 48 hours to complete.

Students will only have access to courses that their instructor has enabled. Courses for the 200801 term have been created as Unavailable, and they will not be visible to the students until the instructor changes the course status to Available.

Your user-id is based on your primary campus affiliation, for example:
  • fsabc for a UAF student taking a UAF course
  • jajones (UA Username) for a UAS student taking a UAS course


Please check this page for outage updates.

New! Hide your old courses! Your "My Courses" module features a new function that lets you choose which courses and announcements appear in the "My Blackboard" tab. Click the pencil icon in the top-right corner of the module to change your display options.

Need a course copied? Instructors wishing to copy courses may now do so on their own; see Course Options under the Control Panel or complete instructions here.

Need courses stacked? Instructors who need courses stacked (multiple courses put together and treated as one) may go to the UAF Blackboard Course Copy/Stacking Online Request form.

Users of Microsoft Vista and Internet Explorer 7 report problems using Blackboard. Some Blackboard features, such as Announcements and the Discussion Board's Visual Text Box Editor, may work improperly or not at all. If you experience problems using Microsoft Vista or Internet Explorer 7, OIT recommends using an alternative web browser, such as FireFox or Opera. Read the full article here.


Blackboard will be offline:

Blackboard will be unavailable every Sunday morning from 5AM - 6AM for Server Maintenance.


Blackboard support:

If you experience problems with Blackboard or need to file a support request, please send an email to OIT Support Center helpdesk@alaska.edu with the following information:

1. Your name
2. Your username (do not include your password)
3. The course CRN or course ID
4. The problem you experienced or let us know what your request is

You may also call the OIT Support Center for assistance at 907-450-8300.

Blackboard is maintained by the
Office of Information Technology.