Merged Courses in Blackboard: Important Change to Course Availability

Summary

Blackboard has recently changed how merged courses handle availability and course dates. As a result, students and instructors may see missing or closed courses after a merge even when enrollment is correct. This article explains how merged courses work, what changed, and what faculty need to do to ensure student access.

Body

🎓 Merged Course Visibility in Blackboard

⚠️ Important Update About Merged Courses

Blackboard recently changed how merged courses handle availability and course dates. These settings are now strictly enforced. Previously, section courses could remain closed without affecting access. This is no longer the case. If a parent or section course is unavailable or outside its course dates, students (and instructors) may not see the course on their Blackboard dashboard—even when enrollment is correct.

Why a Merged Course May Look Missing or Closed

If your courses are merged, you or your students may notice that:

  • A course does not appear on the dashboard

  • Only one section appears instead of multiple

  • A course appears “closed” after the semester has started

These behaviors are expected under Blackboard’s current design.

When a student is enrolled in multiple merged sections (such as ALP + Composition), Blackboard will display only one course tile. This is expected behavior and does not indicate a duplicate enrollment issue.

How Merged Courses Work (Quick Explanation)

In a merged course:

The parent course

  • Holds all content, assignments, and grades

  • Does not appear on student dashboards unless the student is only enrolled in the parent only

The section (child) courses

  • Control enrollment and dashboard access

  • Are what students click to enter the course

Students do not see a separate parent course tile.
This is normal and by design.

Why Students May See Only One Section

After courses are merged, Blackboard may show students only one section tile on their dashboard. This single tile serves as the entry point to all merged course content.

✔ Students only need to click the one course they see
✔ All merged content is still accessible

This does not mean:

  • A section is missing

  • Content is in the wrong place

  • Enrollment is incorrect

NEW: What Faculty Need to Do After a Course Is Merged

To ensure students can access the course:

  • Make the parent course available

  • Make all section (child) courses available

  • Confirm courses are set to term dates

Best practice: For merged courses, the parent and all section courses must be available once students are enrolled.

If Students Report Missing Access

  • Do not rebuild content

  • Do not unmerge courses

  • Contact OLT / IT — access issues can usually be resolved quickly

🧩 Note for ALP (Accelerated Learning Program) Courses

Many English courses at CCRI use an ALP structure, where students are intentionally enrolled in both a support section (e.g., ENGL 1005A) and a credit-bearing section (e.g., ENGL 1010A).

In merged ALP courses:

  • Students may see only one English course tile

  • That tile provides access to all required content

  • Other sections and the parent course are hidden to avoid duplicates

This behavior is expected and does not indicate a problem.

Key Takeaway

If a merged course looks missing or closed, availability settings are the first thing to check.

Related Resources

Details

Details

Article ID: 170643
Created
Fri 1/30/26 3:51 PM
Modified
Wed 3/18/26 4:24 PM