Grouping Sections Together

For instructors who use Blackboard and teach courses with multiple sections, an option for grouping those course sections and managing them as one course is available.

Instructors who do choose to group multiple sections of the same course (“child” sections) will manage them from one “parent” section. After grouping, instructors will see only the parent section; child sections will be inaccessible.

The option to group sections is part of the Backboard course activation/deactivation page in the Homer system at https://homerconnect.ithaca.edu. Instructors are advised to carefully consider the impact of grouping before choosing this option for managing their course sections.

Before you decide to group, carefully consider the implications of this choice. When you group multiple “child” sections of a course and manage them through one “parent” section, your course content is distributed to all sections at once (all students are listed in the Gradebook of the parent section). If the course content you are distributing is time-dependent, students may be confused by what they see in their individual sections. For instance, when you distribute an assignment with a particular due date through your parent section, all sections will see the same due date, which may result in confusion if some sections meet on MWF and others meet on TuTh. Blackboard offers tools (such as selective release criteria and student groups) that help you get around these issues, but you will need to set them up and manage them each time you offer your course. Another way to address this issue is to manage your course from two parent sections.

You have the option to group child sections under one (Group A) or two (Group A and Group B) parent sections. Most instructors will choose to group multiple sections of the same course (“child” sections) under one “parent” section (Group A). Some courses have multiple sections that divide well into two groups and are easier to manage from two parent sections (Group A and Group B) instead of one (Group A).

After grouping, instructors will see only the parent section and child sections will be inaccessible. New parent sections will be empty.