Self-Paced Enroll Anytime Instructor Resources

These resources are available to instructors who teach Enroll Anytime courses. This page is continuously updated. If you have any questions, please contact the SPEA Coordinator or Julie Zikmund.

Enrollment Reports

Each week instructors receive an automated report indicating new enrollments for the course.  

  • The report will be sent from the OEL (Office of Extended Learning).
  • Instructors will get an email even if there are no new enrollments. The text within the email states how many names are included on the attached report. If the text states there are 0 new enrollments, there is no need to open the attachment.
  • The report covers registrations received 8-14 days before the report date. The extra padding is there to ensure that students are ready to start work in your course; we have already verified co/prerequisites and English proficiency when needed.
  • The report contains the student's name, course, and email used when registering for the course. Please note: you should still use the student’s UND email address for correspondence, but we understand that sometimes students don’t check their UND email right away and you need an alternative method to reach them.

If you wish to view a full course roster, view and/or download the Blackboard Grade Center/Gradebook.

Welcome Emails

A great way to welcome an online student to your course is to send a welcome email.

Once you send a welcome email to the student, enter a point in the Welcome Email Gradebook column to indicate that this step has been completed. 

Due to timing of reports, occasionally students might appear in Grade Center/Gradebook before they appear on your report; it’s appropriate to welcome them as soon as you know about them.

You may use whatever welcome email text you feel is appropriate. The Student Welcome Email Templates has a few ideas you may choose from, or you can choose to write your own. This is the first contact a student has with you, so leave a great first impression.

Course Surveys

Course Completion Surveys are compiled twice a year. The results include the date ranges for April 1 to September 30, and October 1 through March 31. The Office of Extended Learning follows the SELFI procedure and guidelines as closely as possible. Survey responses are collected via Qualtrics, and the questions are similar to the semester SELFIs.

Course Enrollment Surveys links are in every SPEA Blackboard course. They provide feedback to OEL regarding registration processes. The responses are reviewed monthly by OEL staff. 

Final Grades

When giving final grades, follow these steps: Final Grade Reporting for Campus Connection. NOTE: Do not approve the roster. 

  • If/when students request an extension, they will get an I in Campus Connection. You will not be able to enter grades for these students. Instead please email und.courses@UND.edu with the final grade. 
  • When students request an extension we add an "x" to the end of the End Date column in the Grade Book. This is a manual process so there is room for error, but we hope it provides a quick indicator of which students purchased extensions.
  • You will also see a "Term" column in the Gradebook, which will hlep you identify the correct Campus Connection grade roster to find the student. 
  • There is also a "Final Letter Grade" text column in the Gradebook. This does not affect the grade calculation in the course and does not connect to Campus Connection, but it will generate in a Blackboard report that will help us know when to begin processing students out of the course. Please enter their final letter grade in Blackboard Grade Center/Gradebook in addition to posting the final grade in Campus Connection or (in the case of extensions/incompletes) emailing UND.courses@UND.edu.
  • Finally, if you notice that a student's end date has passed and they have not completed the course, please do not submit their final grade in Campus Connection. Our team will take care of the final grade submission and process them out of the course. 

Daily Needs Grading Email

When an instructor has items in the course that need grading (indicated by a purple number next to the Gradebook tab), an email will be sent by OEL staff to the instructor notifying them that there are items that need to be graded.

  • The notification email simply states there is something to grade. The details of what needs grading can be found in the Needs Grading area under "Gradebook - Overview" in Blackboard Ultra or the "Needs Grading" area in Blackboard Original.
  • If an item is automatically graded by Blackboard, it will not appear in the Needs Grading report and therefore the instructor will not get a notification.
  • BB Ultra tip: If your graded assessments are set to "Post Manually," they will appear in the Needs Posting area and you will need to click "Post now" to release the grade to the student. You can change the setting to Post Automatically if you wish.

The last assessment in the course must have an item that requires manual grading to alert you that the student has completed the course. This can be an ungraded quiz with an essay question asking students to verify that they have completed the course, which will then appear in your Needs Grading list.

Student Retention Emails

Instructors are encouraged to send retention emails to students who have not been active for more than 30 days (the interval is up to you). The SPEA coordinator can provide the student's non-UND email upon request if you wish to include that in your retention outreach.

  • Ultra courses will send an automated email to students when they have been inactive for 21 days.
  • Encourage students to use the Suggested Deadline spreadsheet to get back on track. If your course doesn't have a Suggested Deadline spreadsheet, contact the SPEA Coordinator to set one up and add it to the Start Here module.

Helpful Items to Share with Your Students

Changes to the Course after Launch

Once the course is launched, minimal changes should be made to course content on an as-needed basis. If a course needs significant changes, contact the SPEA coordinator to discuss setting up a new Blackboard shell.

  • Please do post announcements when you will be offline for a few days and your grading and email responses will be delayed.
  • If you find articles or videos that may prove interesting to students and supplement the existing content, please share those with students. You could do that through an announcement or in a "Supplemental items" folder if your course has them. This is a great way to connect your course to the "real world."
  • Feel free to fix any typos or grammatical mistakes that you might find.
  • If a weblink breaks or an address changes, please update the link. 

Do not make any other changes to your course unless approved by the SPEA Coordinator. 

Development Process

SPEA courses remain open for a much longer peroid of time than semester-based courses, and they are therefore less flexible and require thorough reviewing before opening.

  1. Substanative revisions should be made in a new Blackboard course shell, not the existing course.
  2. Complete work on the first 1-3 lessons and the syllabus template first. Notify the SPEA coordinator to review the Lessons and provide feedback. An instructional designer may also review these lessons and provide feedback. This step will prevent you from needing to make the same changes to every lesson at the end of the course development..
  3. After all items in step 2 have been reviewed and approved, work on the next half of lessons in the course. The instructional Designer and the SPEA Coordinator will do a quick review again, just to be sure things are still on track.
  4. Once work on the course is complete, the instructional designer will complete a full course review and hand it off to the SPEA Coordinator for a final check and to set up the administrative items in the Gradebook.
  5. At this point, the department chair and/or college representative will be added to the course so they may review it.
  6. After all parties have reviewed and approved the course, the course may be launched and opened to new enrollments. 

Instructor Videos

Note: 6/21/24  The criteria regarding instructor videos is in the process of being edited. Please check with the SPEA Coordinator or the Instructional Designer to learn about the current guidelines/requirements. 

  • Instructor videos must be added to YuJa. Video files cannot be uploaded to Blackboard due to storage issues. YouTube videos or other web media should be linked or embedded in the course. 
  • YuJa automatically captions videos using AI. Please review the captioning and correct major errors. Contact the SPEA Coordinator for guidance on the most efficient way to perform this review.
  • Each lecture should have download enabled in YuJa.
  • Add the length of the video in the to-list as well as the video item itself, and preferably a short description of what the video covers. This provides students with a high-level expectation of the time they will need to commit to the lesson.
Video Types/Format
  • Course Overview: This will be a short video welcoming students to the course, introducing yourself, and providing a gneeral overview of the syllabus and course layout in Blackboard, using the Student Preview tool. 
  • Lesson introduction video: think about the first and last few minutes of a live class. Consider recording an intro video in your SPEA lesson that covers the same thing. What is covered, why is it important? What points should they pay special attention to? How do they finish the lesson?
  • Lecture/Content video: Feedback from students has shown that they appreciate robust instructional content from the professor rather than feeling like they are "teaching themselves" out of a textbook or relying on publisher materials. We encourage you to create engaging, personalized instructional content that echoes how you would deliver instruction in a face-to-face course. Feel free to get creative with this depending on your subject area; we have some courses with recorded classroom lectures, digital whiteboard demonstrations, and the classic PowerPoint voiceover. 
  • When developing your lecture content, aim to chunk your videos into segments that are 20 minutes or shorter. See this guide from TTaDA on Creating Digital Presentations for more recommendations and best practices.

Student Videos

Does your course require students to submit video recordings? They will need to submit that recording via a YuJa link. Here are instructions you could include in the course:

  • To record the video, you may use a computer with a webcam or a mobile device.
  • You may either record your video directly to YuJa with the video recorder, or you may record the video on your computer/mobile device and upload it to YuJa later.
  • After the video is recorded or uploaded to YuJa, log in to YuJa to get a direct link. For instructions on how to use YuJa, please see the SPEA Student YuJa Manual.

Allowing students the option of submitting a written paper or a video submission is a great week to keep students more engaged in content, and it is likely to increase the quality of their submission. It also makes grading more interesting for you as the instructor. 

Instructional Resources

  • SPEA Syllabus Template - revised June 2025
  • Please use this syllabus as a starting point. The SPEA Coordinator will transfer the information from this template to the SPEA Simple Syllabus for your course. Some of the policies and sections of text differ slightly than the semester syllabus template. 
  • Wondering how to write course and lesson objectives? The Course Design page for TTaDA provides information on how to write lesson objectives.
  • Take your PowerPoint presentation to the next level by using a UND branded template.

Proctored Exams

UND uses Honorlock as the default proctoring system for online courses, inlcuding SPEA courses. See the SPEA Exams webpage for more information. 

General Development Tips

  • Each lesson should have lesson objectives that match what is being assessed in the lesson, and a to-do list.
  • As you develop assignment sheets, supplemental materials, PowerPoint slide decks, and other course content, keep digital accessibility in mind. See TTaDA's website on Creating Accessible Content for more information, and contact the SPEA Coordinator or your instructional designer for more specific guidance.

When an instructor is stepping away from teaching their course (e.g., retirement, resignation, reassignment, etc.), someone must take over teaching the course. The Department/College is responsible for assigning a new instructor. With the instructor change, the department may consider any of these options:

  • A new instructor takes over the existing course. The course remains open for enrollments, and minimal edits are made to the existing course. The new instructor may or may not work on creating a new course while teaching the existing one. 
  • A new instructor takes over the existing course. The course stops accepting new enrollments and will no longer be open to new students. Minimal edits are made to the existing course. The new instructor may or may not create a new course. 

The Department/College notifies the SPEA Coordinator that an instructor change will occur and the timeline for the change. The steps below outline the instructor change procedure. Some procedures may need to be adjusted slightly if it is for a temporary 30-day instructor change.

Upon Notification of the Upcoming Change

  • Once the Department/College notifies the SPEA Coordinator about the change, the SPEA Coordinator will:
    • Email the incoming and outgoing instructors with the timeline or changes so they have it easily accessible in writing. 
    • Add the new instructor with the Instructor role to the Blackboard course so they may become familiar with the course.
    • Set up a meeting with the new instructor and an Instructional Designer (ID). At the meeting:
      • Review the instructor change process and expectations.
      • Walk through the course and discuss what changes should be made. Emphasize that additional changes should not be made unless approved by the SPEA Coordinator and ID. This applies to the instructor change period as well as after the change.
      • Introduce the roles of SPEA Coordinator, the Instructional Designer, and the Student Records (SRS) team.
      • Make sure instructor understands the date they should start grading items. Until that date they can start work on the syllabus, welcome video, course commercial, etc., but they should not post the changes yet.
      • Review expectations for grading, welcome emails, how to handle final grades, and notifying students when there will be an extended absence.

Two to Four Weeks Before the Change

  • The outgoing instructor will post an announcement letting the students know there will be a change.
  • The outgoing instructor continues to grade items until the date of the change.
  • The new instructor will revise (but not post) the syllabus, create a welcome video, and become familiar with the course.
  • Suggested: the outgoing and new instructors meet to review the course/grading expectations.

Day of Change

  • The SPEA Coordinator will:
    • Email the new instructor to confirm  they are ready to teach the course
    • Remove outgoing instructor from the Blackboard course
    • Update course commercial on webpage with one recorded by the new instructor, if applicable
    • Update the Course Completion Survey in Qualtrics.
    • Notify others in the Office of Extended Learning and update internal SPEA class documentation.
  • The new instructor and SPEA Coordinator should work together to complete the following:
    • Delete outgoing instructor welcome  announcement, as well as any old announcements that are no longer pertinent
    • In Blackboard, post the revised syllabus as a pdf file
    • Update the Faculty information item in the course
    • The new instructor should post announcement introducing themselves. ("…expectations and grading will be the same…") Include a welcome video.
  • In addition, the SPEA Coordinator should facilitate the following:
    • The Office of Extended Learning will update Campus Connection.
      • Add the new instructor to the current and future terms (if the future class number was already created)
      • Add the new instructor to previous terms that have students still enrolled in the Blackboard course.

        The outgoing instructor will remain listed for the current and previous terms, which means both instructors will display under that class number.

        Note: if this is a 30-day change, only add the new/temp instructor to the applicable terms. If they aren’t teaching during a future term, they will not be added to that class number.
    • The office of Extended Learning will update the automatic reports sent from the Enrole database. 

30 Day Instructor Change

When an instructor is retiring from UND but will ultimately continue teaching a SPEA course after retirement, complete a 30-day instructor change. Begin by completing the instructor change steps outlined above, with modifications where appropriate.

After the 30 days when the original instructor is returning, complete these steps:

  • The original instructor will:
    • Post announcement in course about the switch, delete old announcements
    • Update Faculty information in Blackboard
  • The Office of Extended Learning will:
    • Update weekly enrollment report that is emailed to the instructor
    • Remove outgoing instructor from all Campus Connection sections
    • Remove the temporary instructor from the Blackboard course

 

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