Instructor and Observer Enrollment Policy

Who is this guide for?

Faculty, Staff, Program Directors, Digital Learning Team, IT Team.

What does this guide help with?

This guide will cover the policy surrounding Instructor and Observer enrollments that are manually entered in Blackboard. Specifically:

• Difference between instructor and observer
• Enrollment policy - Permitted and Unpermitted Enrollments
• How to request an Observer Enrollment

Instructor vs. Observer, what is the difference?

Instructor Role

The instructor role is reserved for those instructors who are on record, teaching a course. All users with the instructor role are placed on the course evaluation, and are evaluated at the end of term. 

Observer/Grader Role

The observer role, sometimes shown as "grader" role on the roster in Blackboard, are for instructors who need access to a course, but do not need to add, edit, or copy content to a course. 

Permitted and Unpermitted Enrollments

Unpermitted - Instructor Role - Current/Future Term Courses

The Blackboard team is unable to enroll users as instructors in current and future term courses. If you require the instructor role, you must be on record as teaching the course and will appear on the course evaluation. These requests must be directed to the program administrator, program director, or registrar.

Permitted - Instructor Role - Previous Term Courses

The Blackboard team can enroll users as instructors in previous term courses. On a case by case basis, users may be added as instructors to previous term courses with approval from their program director. These course adds are temporary. By default users will be removed two weeks after the request, unless otherwise specified.

Requests must include a valid reason for enrollment:

• Audit of gradebook for academic purposes
• Instructor Evaluation
• Student Evaluation

Permitted - Observer/Grade Role - Current/Future/Previous Term Courses

The Blackboard team can enroll users as observers in current, future and previous term courses. Users may be added to current term courses by request. All observer enrollments for a current term course expire at the end of term, unless otherwise specified. Previous term courses will expire after two weeks.

Any observer role request must fall under one of the following scenarios:

• Instructor on record requests the observer enrollment.
• Program administrator who handles enrollment requests an observer enrollment
• APD/PD/Leadership requests an observer enrollment

Requesting Observer/Grader Enrollment

To request an observer/grader enrollment, visit this page and fill out all required fields.  A representative will follow up if more information is required. The approver field should contain the instructor of record, or the program director/assistant program direct to confirm the enrollment.