This page lists all the policies associated with Blackboard. For more information or advice, or if the policy you need is not here, or you find inaccurate or dated information, please contact us.
Any use of the Blackboard must comply with the following:
It is the responsibility of the course instructor or organisation leader to ensure that any use of Blackboard corresponds with these regulations and to immediately withdraw access to users who fail to comply with these policies.
The University's Web Accessibility Policy requires that all new web content conforms to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Conformance Level "AA", with immediate effect, and that existing Web content be gradually brought into line, as it is periodically updated.
The Blackboard Accessibility Policy is that course instructors and organisation leaders are responsible for making their material accessible for their students on their Blackboard courses, or colleagues on their organisations. They should make reasonable adjustments to meet accessibility needs.
It is the responsibility of course owners to ensure they have saved a copy of their course at the end of the academic year, or relevant teaching period, for use in case of appeals or the accidental deletion of data. It is also the responsibility of course owners to ensure they have removed old course content, such as out-of-date announcements, presentations, or past students.
Any request to digital-education@bristol.ac.uk for information or assistance will be responded to within three working days. If you do not receive a response, please contact us by telephone.
Staff should exercise caution before adding copyrighted materials to Blackboard. Please check with the Secretary's Office for up-to-date information regarding current licenses held by the University. It is the responsibility of the course instructor or organisation leader to ensure that all materials posted on their course or organisation complies with copyright legislation.
Blackboard now draws information directly from central University records, eg SITS. More information on the University's data protection policies is available from the Secretary's Office.
The individual files uploaded onto your course, organisation or Content System are your responsibility. If the files are deleted from Blackboard by you or a colleague and you do not have a backup then you can email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk. However, the recovery of the file(s) will be considered a low priority and the work will be fitted in with the available resource.
The University is entitled as part of the Blackboard license to have a percentage of people using Blackboard who are not registered at the University. This number is fixed and the accounts are distributed on a first come, first served basis.
Each account is associated with a University sponsor. It is the responsibility of the University sponsor to ensure that the individual is aware of, and abides by, the regulations governing the use of Blackboard. For information on guest accounts, contact us.
Most students are enrolled onto their courses automatically, based on their registrations in SITS. Additional enrolments, or enrolments across teaching blocks, are still the course lecturer or administrator's responsibility. If you need to enrol a large number of students then please contact us to discuss your requirements.
It is the policy that the Blackboard service will only normally have scheduled work, requiring a downtime (service not available), in the Summer and Christmas Vacations. However, the service may be unavailable for security or performance-related issues at the discretion of the Blackboard technical team, based in IT Services. The Blackboard team will, where possible, give warning of service interruptions. For more information contact us.
To unenrol from a Blackboard course you need to contact the person, in most cases your lecturer, who runs the course and request that they remove you from the course.
By accessing Blackboard, the University's online learning environment, you accept and agree to bound by all the policies associated with it. If you do not agree to any of these policies you should not access Blackboard. You must keep your user details confidential, in line with Information Services's Code of conduct for the use of computing facilities. You are responsible for any Blackboard use undertaken using your username and password.
Items will be removed immediately from the Blackboard Content System once proof of copyright violation has been forwarded to the Digital Education Office.
Regular backups of Content System files are made, in line with current institutional best practice. Materials uploaded to the Content System may be retained indefinitely.
Note: Some of the documents on this page are in PDF format. In order to view a PDF you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader.
