Any Blackboard course which represents one or more RISIS module occurrences has a course ID in the format AB1XYZ-20-1MOD.

This applies to Blackboard courses bringing together multiple occurrences of the same module, as well as ‘merged courses’ which combine two or more distinct module codes.

The technical details

We introduced some back-end changes to the way we deal with RISIS module occurrences in 2019-20. These changes were invisible to most users, but were designed to improve the way the RISIS-Blackboard integration handles students who have a non-standard assessment pattern (e.g. Study Abroad and Visiting students). The changes should benefit all users, but particularly Programme Administrators responsible for setting up summative assessment points, and passing marks back to RISIS.

Previously, the Blackboard courses for most RISIS modules had an 18-9A suffix.

If a module ran more than once in the same academic year, the Blackboard courses for subsequent occurrences were suffixed 18-9B, 18-9C.

From 2019-20, staff no longer see the letter A at the end of Blackboard course codes. Most module codes in Blackboard will be in the format AB1XYZ-19-0MOD, AB1XYZ-20-1MOD.

We are actually using the same Blackboard functionality as for merged courses: the courses that staff see will automatically pull in enrolments from the A occurrence, and any non-standard occurrences of the module (H, J, K, L, LV, N, Q, V). These will all be automatically merged into the same Blackboard course e.g.

AB1XYZ-20-1MOD

might have enrolments from

AB1XYZ-20-1A

AB1XYZ-20-1J

AB1XYZ-20-1V

It should be easy to identify which students belong to which module occurrence as the ‘Child Course ID’ will be populated for all students in the Users list, the Grade Centre, and on the Grade Approval screen.

B and C occurrences

Where a module does run for a second or third time in the same academic year, the B and C occurrences will be created in Blackboard as normal e.g. AB1XYZ-20-1B, AB1XYZ-20-1C.

Merged Courses

The course name for Merged courses now includes the words ‘Merged Course’, so that these can easily be identified by staff.

Please note that students will still see the name of the RISIS module they are enrolled on, even when in fact they are being redirected to a Merged Course.

Foundation Degrees and Foundation Programmes

To avoid confusion, the RISIS team have provided new suffixes for modules

• delivered simultaneously, at multiple locations
• delivered simultaneously, to students on multiple Programmes with different assessment regimes.

Malaysia

There are no changes to Blackboard courses for modules delivered at UoRM. These will continue to appear as AB1XYZ-20-1MA, AB1XYZ-20-1MB, AB1XYZ-20-1MC.

Page last updated on September 8, 2020 by andyturner