A new course menu and template were created for this Fall. The purpose was to create more consistency for students across all their courses and to embed supports where possible. However, if you are copying content from a previous course in myLesley to your Fall 2020 course, you may need to merge the two and clean things up a bit.

What’s in a course menu?

There are three main types of course menu items: content areas, tool links, and web links.

Content Areas are places in your course where you post various types of course content, such as items, uploaded documents, assignments, and more. Think of them as a folder on your computer where you group common items together. Course Content & Assignments is an example of a content area.

Tool Links are links to tools that are part of Blackboard or integrated into Blackboard, such as Discussions Boards, Class Email, My Grades, etc.

Web Links are links to external content. This external content can be anything on the internet that you wish to link to. For example, Technology Resources links out to the IT & eLearning Support Site at Lesley.

The new course menu also contains Headers. These are non-clickable titles for groups of related content. They can be renamed, edited or moved just as any other menu item. “Course Content” and “Communication” are examples of a header.

Your course menu is completely editable by you. Course menu items can be renamed, moved, deleted, and hidden from student view.

A Common Issue After Course Copy

If you copy your course content from a prior course you may notice that you have menu items for “Course Content” and for “Course Content & Assignments.” myLesley (Blackboard) will not merge these two content areas together automatically. Just as with folders you create on your computer, these are two separate containers with different names. You need to tell Blackboard what you want it to do.

Fix your course menu in 3 easy steps

1. Rename menu items

Many faculty choose to rename the older “Course Content” menu item to “Course Content & Assignments.”

For more information see Modifying your Course Menu.

2. Delete menu items

Delete the original (now duplicate) placeholder content.

Be very sure to delete. There is no undo.

Also, delete any duplicate or unneeded menu items that copied to clean up your course menu and make it easier for your students to navigate your course menu.

3. Reorder menu items

When a course copy is done, all new content copied in is at the bottom of the menu. You can easily reorder the menu items, but clicking on the double arrow icon to the left of the menu item and dragging it to a new location.

For more information see Modifying your Course Menu.