Blackboard is your Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), an online platform used to enhance and support your teaching, learning, assessment and feedback. Blackboard provides a place for you to access important module information, module materials, upload work, access provisional grades and feedback, participate in a wide variety of online learning activities and communicate with your tutors and other students on your course.
Blackboard can be accessed ‘anywhere and anytime’ via a computer or internet enabled device.
Go to https://udo.derby.ac.uk/ and select the Blackboard tile.
You may need to login with your university username and password.
Once logged into Blackboard, you will automatically land on the Institution page. Within this home page you will see:
Institution Page – find important announcements as well as helpful links and resources. | |
Profile – add your profile picture and customise the notifications you want to receive in the Activity Stream, by email or on the Blackboard app. | |
Activity Stream – setup and configure your activity stream to alert you to new and upcoming activity in your modules and programmes. | |
Modules – here you can find and access your modules. They can be searched, filtered, and displayed in different ways. You can also ‘favourite’ modules . | |
Programmes and Organisations - here you will find information specific to your programme and your discipline area (if applicable). | |
Calendar - view all course, programme, institution, and personal events. | |
Messages – a tool to send messages within a module or programme. Note – messages are not emailed. Tip – please continue to contact your tutors through agreed communication channels. | |
Provisional Grades and Feedback - a quick access to view your provisional marks and feedback across all your modules. | |
Tools - access tools that live outside your courses. Currently the University of Derby does not have any additional tools enabled. |
You can edit your profile on Blackboard to personalise it.
To access your profile page, click on your name on the left hand side navigation menu.
You can view your module in two ways, either in text line view or in image block view, this is accessed at the top of the module tab and left of the search bar.
To add a Module to your favourites, click on the star on the right side of the course tile. This will move the course to the top of the page under the “Favourites” heading.
How do you prefer to engage with digital learning content? Do you read on your phone or tablet, use a screen reader, like to annotate and highlight, or listen to an audio version?
Ally automatically generates ‘alternative formats’ from your original module files and makes them available for download so that you can engage with course content in a way that works best for you.
From the Ally button, an A with a downward-facing arrow, appearing next to all uploaded documents and items in Blackboard, you can access multiple different formats.
To access the alternative file formats mouse over the A↓.
The image below shows some of the types of Alternative formats available. Choose a format that is right for you.
Pick the accessible format you would like to download and click on the download button. Your accessible file will be available wherever your browser places downloaded files. You can then open the downloaded file with an appropriate device.
Choose from:
Note: Ally doesn’t currently work in the Blackboard mobile App.
For more info on alternative formats, visit: Alternative Formats
Some differences may exist between what is covered in the video and the version of Ally available within the University.