Would you like to make an attractive visual Course Entry or "Landing" page for your Blackboard course such as the one shown below? If YES, then read on...

A "Course Entry" point is the first page/content item that users will experience when enter. In Blackboard, it may also be referred to as the "Course Entry" page. By default, and unless previously customised, Blackboard sets the Announcements page as the Course Entry page. The Course Entry/Landing page can be customised to reflect whichever page/content you wish.

The following are suggestions for Blackboard Course Entry page image dimensions and format:

• The image can be created in any image editor.
• The exported format should be either .JPEG, .PNG (larger than JPEG files, but of higher quality, and the background is also transparent).
• The image can be in landscape or portrait format.
• Blackboard recommends ~800 px as the maximum width for the Content Area (for viewing on variety of devices).
• Image resolution should be 150 ppi/dpi (for web-only images).
• The final filesize should be no greater than 2MB (to help with download speeds).
  • Enable a Compress File Size if your chosen image editor allows.

Create a new page to "house" your landing page.  Name it as per your requirements (e.g. Syllabus, Course Overview, etc). For the purpose of this article, the new page is going to house the "Syllabus" content.

1. Add a new page by selecting the "Plus" (+) icon on the Blackboard course menu.
2. From the dropdown, select Blank Page.
3. Name your new page (e.g. New Content Area, Syllabus etc)
4. Tick the Available to Users box, to ensure students can view your new page, and click Submit.

1. Scroll down the page until you get to the CONTENT section.
2. To add your image, and using the text editor area, click the Add Content (+)  icon.
3. On the Add Content menu that opens choose:
   • Insert Local Files if you have NOT Preloaded your image.
     • Browse your local computer files, select your chosen image, and click Open.
   • Insert Course Files if you HAVE Preloaded your image
     • Browse the Content Collection, select your chosen image, and click Submit.

4. Your image should now be visible in the text editor area. To manually adjust the image size, use the handles on the corners of the image and drag inwards until you achieve a preferred size.
   • Optional Extra: Remove the Whitespace from the top of the Image
   • Optional Extra: Hide the Title from the Blackboard Page
5. Attachments: Use the Browse Local Files or Browse Course Files buttons to upload attachments.
   • In the final view, attachments to the page will appear above the image itself.
6. Options:
   • Permit Users to View this Content: Select Yes to permit students to view this content.
   • Track Number of Views: Select Yes to track the number of times that students have accessed the link.
   • Select Date and Time Restrictions: Use the date selectors to specify a time period in which the item would be visible to students.
7. When finished, click Submit to save the page.

Your final view of the [Syllabus] page should now look something like the images shown at the top of this article.

By default, the Blackboard Course Entry/Landing page (the first content that a visitor to your course will see) is set to Announcements. To make your new [Syllabus] page the Entry Point of your Blackboard course, review Setting the Course Entry Page.