Items

About Items

Items are general pieces of content added to a Course to which items may be attached.

Add an Item

Follow the steps below to add an item to a Content Area:

Open a Content Area, such as Course Documents, from the Control Panel.
Select Add Item from the Action Bar.
Complete the Add Item page and click Submit.

Attach a file to an item

Files from a local system may be attached to an item in a Content Area. See File Attachments for additional information about file types and file names. Follow the steps below to attach a file to an item:

Open a Content Area, such as Course Documents, from the Control Panel.
Select Add Item from the Action Bar.
Enter a name for the item in the Name field.
Use the Visual Text Box Editor to create any text for the item.
Click Save as Reusable Object to create a Reusable Object using this text.
Click Browse next to Content Collection location to select a folder to store the Reusable Object.
Click Browse next to Attach Local file or Link to Content Collection. Select the file. When a local file is selected, the following options are enabled:
- Click Browse to choose a location within the Content Collection to save the file. This field appears when Local File Storage is turned off.
- Click Add Metadata to add metadata to the file.
Note: Metadata can be selected to display with the item at this step.
Complete the Name of Link to File field. This name appears to users; they will select this link to open the attached file.
Select an option in the drop-down list in the Special Action field. See "Special Actions" for more information about these options.
Click either the Yes or No radio buttons to decide whether or not to Make the Content available and Track Number of Views.
Use the Display Until and Display After checkboxes and the date fields to Choose date and time restrictions for the item.
Click Submit.

Files may also be attached to an item from the Content Collection. Select Browse next to Link to Content Collection. Select the file on the Content Collection window that appears.

Note: The Blackboard Learning System can recognize additional file types and associated applications if a MIME extension is added. Contact your System Administrator for more information about adding MIME extensions.

Note: Users who have the third row of the Visual Text Box Editor available may use the options in the third row to add items.

Special Actions

Section two of the Add Item page contains a Special Action field which allows users to select the behavior of files attached to an item. The following Special Actions are available:

Create a link to this file: Attach the file to the item. A link is automatically inserted below the document title to access the file.
Display media file within the page: Display media file within the page: Embed certain kinds of media within the page itself instead of creating a link. When this option is selected, the file will not appear in the Currently Attached Files field after the page is submitted. The image or image tag for the file will appear in the Text Box Editor. (The image may appear in a black or transparent box.) Embed certain kinds of media within the page itself instead of creating a link. When this option is selected, the file will not appear in the Currently Attached Files field after the page is submitted. The image or image tag for the file will appear in the Text Box Editor. (The image may appear in a black or transparent box.) If this option is selected, the attached file must be a format recognizable by the Blackboard Learning System. If it is not, a link to the file is automatically created.
Unpackage this file: Indicates to the system that the file must be unpackaged before displaying.

Note: If the file format is not one of the supported digital media formats, the Display media file within the page feature will default to the Create a link to this file feature.

Embed image files

Image files may be embedded in Items. The following steps explain how to embed an image file (for example, a .jpg file) in a Content Area.

In the Control Panel, open a Content Area such as Course Documents.
Select Add Item on the Content Area page. The Add Item page appears.
Enter a title for the content item and add a description or introduction to the image in the text box.
Click Browse next to Attach local file and locate the image to add.
The Name of Link to File field may be left blank. The image is being displayed on the page.
Select Display media file within the page in the Special Action drop-down list.
Select the appropriate options for the item.
Click Submit and then OK. The Content Actions page appears.
Select the position of the image in the Alignment and Placement fields.
In the Set Width and Set Height field enter the width and height of the image in pixels.
To create a link to a file outside of the local system, enter the URL in Image Target URL. For example, if the image exists in a central repository, the URL may be http://blackboard/images/picture1.jpeg.
Use the drop-down list in Border to choose a border for the image. This option determines the thickness of the border around the image. If ‘0’ is chosen there will be no border around the image.
Enter a description for the image in Alt Text. Alternate text is important for visually impaired users. Alternate text tells users what should appear if the image does not display.
Select Yes in Launch in New Window so the image will appear in a separate browser window. This is especially important if a URL has been entered in Image Target URL.
Click Submit.

Note: The file will not appear in the Currently Attached Files field after the page is submitted. An image tag for the file will appear in the Text box.