Folders are content containers in your Blackboard course. Their function is identical to the folders you would use on your personal computer: to organize content in meaningful ways. Folders can hold a variety of items, including documents, Blackboard tools, and other folders.
Note: if you set the overall availability to No, the Date and Time Restrictions will not function. Instead, leave the overall availability set to Yes, then use Date and Time Restrictions.
Note: availability restrictions on a folder also affect its contents, meaning you do not need to change availability settings for anything within the folder.
Once you have created a Folder, click its title to open it; then you can add content or assessments within it using the Build Content or Assessments menus.
In the Ultra Course View, folders open and close on the same page to make it easy to find the content and assessments inside. Folders may be nested two levels deep (one folder inside of another); this prevents additional clicks and layers that makes it difficult to find the item you are looking for.
You may want to consider using Learning Modules instead of Folders. Learning Modules also act as containers to organize content, but are more clearly defined visually. In a Learning Module, students can progress from one item to the next with arrows at the top of the page. The most significant feature, though, is the ability to enable sequential viewing in the Release Conditions. This forces students to view each item before opening the next and provides visual progress indicators to students to help them determine whether they have completed all of the items in the module.
Use Release Conditions to determine when the folder should become visible to students, but make the items within the folder Visible. Students will not be able to access anything within the folder until the folder itself becomes visible.
You can also use drag and drop to move content that already exists in the course into the folder.
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