Enrol users

Members of staff and students can be added to a Blackboard course manually. 

For Blackboard Curriculum courses the enrolment process of students will occur automatically (you should not attempt to add them manually). However, staff will need to be added.  

To enrol individual users onto a Blackboard course, follow these instructions: 

1. Navigate to the course you wish to enrol users onto. 
2. Within the Course Management section, select Users and Groups and then Users. 
3. Select Enrol User and then select Find Users to Enrol. 
4. Enter a username or click Browse to search for users. Only users that are not already enrolled in the course will be displayed in a search for users. 
5. Type as many usernames as desired, separating each username with a comma. 
6. Select a Role and Enrolment Availability for the users. If Enrolment Availability is set to No then a user will not be able to access the course until this is changed to Yes. 
7. Select Submit to complete the enrolments. Once enrolled, users will be able to access a Blackboard course immediately, providing that their Enrolment Availability is enabled. 

Note: If you are enrolling multiple users via this method and manually enter the usernames rather than searching, if one of the usernames is incorrect, then no users will be enrolled. You will need to remove or amend the incorrect username and repeat the steps above.   If you enter the same username twice this will also result in an error and the user will not be enrolled.

For further help and support in enrolling users to Blackboard courses, please visit the help materials provided by the product vendor. 

Large numbers of users can be enrolled in batch, either onto a single Blackboard course or onto multiple courses. 

Batch enrolling on a single course can be completed by any user enrolled on the course with the Course Admin or Course Teacher role. Enrolling users across multiple courses will need to be processed by ICT. 

Batch enrolling to a single course

Where there is a large number of users to be enrolled onto a single course, or the need to upload users with a mix of roles for a course, then you may wish to enrol them using a .csv (or similar) file. 

Your file must have six columns, containing: 

Column 1 – Username: enter the user’s Imperial College username (This MUST not contain any spaces, including before or after the username)

Column 2 - Last Name: enter the user’s last name 

Column 3 - First Name: enter the user’s first name 

Column 4 – Email: please leave this column blank. No data is needed for the enrolment to complete. 

Column 5 -Password: please leave this column blank. No data is needed for the enrolment to complete. 

Column 6 - Course Role: enter the course role the user will be enrolled as. 

• "IC_P" for Course Admin 
• "IC_T" for Course Teacher 
• “IC_A" for Auditor 
• "IC_G" for Marker 
• "IC_TA" for Teaching Assistant 
• "S" for Student 

e.g. "jsmith123, Smith, John, [no data], [no data], S," 

If needed, you can download our single course batch enrol template.

Once you have compiled your file, follow these instructions to carry out the upload: 

1. Navigate to the course you wish to enrol the users onto. 
2. Within the Course Management section, select Users and Groups and then Users. 
3. Click on Batch Enrol Users in the top left-hand corner. 
4. Locate the file by clicking on Browse and select the delimiter type that corresponds to your file. 
5. Select Submit to upload your file. 
6. Once completed, a report will be generated showing successful enrolments and errors. 

For full instructions on Batch enrolling, please visit the Blackboard help website. 

An individual user or a cohort of multiple users can be enrolled on to multiple courses. These enrolments are carried out on request by ICT.   

To request batch enrolment across multiple Blackboard courses, submit a .txt file via ASK Service Now containing the following column headings and data:  

• Blackboard Course ID(s) 
• Username(s) 
• Course role(s) of the users:
• "IC_P" for Course Admin 
• "IC_T" for Course Teacher 
• “IC_A" for Auditor 
• "IC_G" for Marker 
• "IC_TA" for Teaching Assistant 
• "S" for Student 

E.g.

00001.202010,user1,IC_P

00001.202010,user2,IC_T

00003.202030,user3,IC_G 

You can find the Course ID for a Blackboard course by clicking on the Content Collection dropdown menu in the Course Management section of a course. The Course ID is the first link under the Content Collection heading.  

Note: Due to the new naming conventions with Blackboard courses, the full course code does often not appear correctly in .csv files. To rectify this, please submit Blackboard bulk enrolment requests as a .txt file. You do not need to make any changes to the formatting to do this. 

ICT will not amend the data provided in a submitted file. Batch enrolments will only be accepted if the information is accurate and supplied in the correct format.  

Blackboard courses can have the enrolment method set to Self-Enrolment. This option is useful for open courses that do not have a set cohort of students. Users will need to search for the course in the Blackboard Courses catalogue and enrol themselves as a Student. 

To set Self Enrolment for a course, complete the following steps: 

1. Navigate to the required course and select Customisation from the Course Management menu 
2. Click on Enrolment Options 
3. Select Self-Enrolment and then Submit. From here, you can also set dates that enrolment will be available and an Access Code if desired. 

You should provide clear instructions for students if you would like them to use this method, including how to find the self-enrolment course. 

Note: Staff are required to be enrolled manually. Self-Enrolment only adds users as students to a Blackboard course.