On this page, you’ll find details about the different conditions that can affect access to your Blackboard courses, but please contact Blackboard Student Support if you have an issue impacting your ability to participate in your online course that is not explained here.
There are a few common errors that students can receive when attempting to log in to Blackboard, but if you don’t see information about your issue listed below, you can contact Blackboard Student Support for assistance:
Did you receive an error about your password? If so, you may need to reset your password by following these instructions on the IT Services website. If you’ve already reset your password, you may need to try again, making sure that your new password meets the following requirements:
- minimum of 8 characters
- include an uppercase letter
- include a lowercase letter
- include a number or symbol
- avoid single-quotes (‘), double-quotes (“), and backslashes (\)
- do not use any part of your username, or any part of your first name
- do not enter a password you’ve previously used into the password reset form
When resetting your password, you must enter it identically into the “New Password” and “Confirm Password” input fields on the password reset form. If you don’t do this, or if your password does not meet the requirements listed above, your password reset will be rejected and you’ll need to try again.
Did you receive an error stating that your account does not exist and needs to be added? To sign in to Blackboard, you will need to use your UA Little Rock email address as the user ID, and this error generally appears when you attempt to log in to Blackboard using a different account.
When logging in to Blackboard, make sure to enter your UA Little Rock email address into the user ID field. If another account appears automatically when you access the Blackboard log-in page, click the ‘Use another account’ link to enter your UA Little Rock email address.
Did you receive a generic ‘Sign On’ error? This error usually appears with the Blackboard logo at the top of the screen and indicates that there’s an issue with your account in Blackboard. If you’re new to the university, the error can mean that your account has not yet been created. Users that have left the university will also see this error if their account has expired.
If you’re a current, active user and you receive this error, please contact Blackboard Student Support for assistance.
There are a number of reasons why you might not have access to your courses in Blackboard, so if this the case, take a moment to look over the information about course start and end dates and course availability on this page and assess your situation.
Verify your registration status: If you aren’t able to see the courses you’re registered for, a good place to start is by confirming your registration status for the course. To do this, log in to your BOSS account and access the Student Services tab — there you can check your schedule and for any issues that might impact your registration status for the term.
Check course start date: If you verify that you are officially registered for a course, the issue may just be that it’s too early to access, either because the semester hasn’t started, or because you’ve recently registered for the course in BOSS and your Blackboard account hasn’t reflected the change.
Check with instructor on course availability: If you can see courses that are listed as private, then you won’t have access to them until they’ve been made available by the instructor. You may need to check your UA Little Rock Gmail account for more information from the instructor about the general availability of the course, especially if that the instructor is delayed in making the course available or does not plan to use Blackboard for the course.
If you’re unable to see your courses because you can’t log in to the Blackboard system, you should reach out to the IT Services Assistance Center to troubleshoot your issue. New admits should allow time for their accounts to populate within various campus systems.
If your BOSS account shows that there’s an issue with your admissions, financial aid, or registration status, you will need to reach out to the appropriate office for more information.
If you do not have access to a course that’s been made available by the instructor within the start and end date of the semester, please contact UA Little Rock Blackboard Student Support for assistance.
Registering for Courses
Once you’ve been accepted to the university you will need to be advised each semester before you can register for the upcoming term. You can find more information about advising on the UA Little Rock website.
Once advised, you can register for your courses using these instructions on the Records and Registration website. On that site, you can also find general information about enrollment, academic status, how to drop a course, and other topics related to registering for courses.
After you’ve registered for the upcoming semester, it can take time for your Blackboard account to reflect changes made to your schedule in BOSS. If you’re waiting on a new course to appear during the add/drop period at the beginning of the semester, or to be reinstated after being administratively dropped, it could take up to three hours for your Blackboard account to update. If you’ve waited longer, reach out to Blackboard Student Support for assistance.
Course Start and End Dates
Each course is associated with a start and end date for the semester on the BOSS class schedule. You should see the start and end date for each course listed on your ‘Detail Schedule’ in BOSS, and you can see the general dates for each term by visiting the Academic Calendar.
If your instructor uses Blackboard for the course, then it should be available to you in Blackboard between the start and end date listed for the course on the BOSS schedule. Your course work should begin on the first day of the term and conclude with the final exam schedule posted on the Academic Calendar. Please make note of these dates, particularly if you’re registering for a course in a five or seven-week term that may not share start and end dates with the full semester.
Instructors that use Blackboard for their courses have the option of granting access to course content to orient you with the course up to a week prior to the first day of the term. If your instructor chooses to keep the course available after grades have been submitted for the term, you will retain access to the course for thirty days after the official course end date.
These general dates will not apply to course access in all situations. Please read the section below titled ‘Course Availability’ for more information about exceptions to access during the term.
Course Availability
Your instructor can control access to course content in Blackboard, and has the ability to grant or deny general access to the course itself during the time period that courses can be made available in the system.
Note that some instructors do not use Blackboard for their courses at all, and may choose not to make course content available to you in Blackboard during the semester.
Some instructors may choose to make the course available up to one week prior to the first day of the term, and may do so at any point during that week.
It’s also possible that your instructor may need to make a course temporarily unavailable at some point during the semester to troubleshoot a technical issue. If an active course suddenly becomes unavailable to you and you’ve confirmed your registration status for the course in BOSS, you may need to check your UA Little Rock Gmail account for correspondence from the instructor.
The instructor may choose to close access to the course at any point from the day that final grades are submitted to the day that courses automatically close for all students, thirty days after the last day of class. You will need to retrieve any course materials or assignment submissions needed for program portfolios, for use as study materials, or for your personal records prior to the end of the term.
In any of these cases, you will not see the courses listed in your Blackboard account until the week before the first day of class. Courses that have not been available to you after that point will be listed as ‘Private’ until the instructor makes them available. At the end of the 30-day period after the semester end date, the courses from the previous term will disappear from your course listing page.
Students with an incomplete status for a course in Banner will retain access to the course in Blackboard until the grade is updated in Banner.
Accessing Organizations
Some campus units may make content available to you through courses listed on the ‘Organizations’ tab. These are similar to Blackboard courses, but enrollment is not tied to your registration status for the semester.
Some organizations require you to enroll yourself in order to gain access. To do this, just visit the Blackboard Organization Catalog and search for the name of the organization. Note: You must be logged in to your Blackboard account to search the Organization Catalog.
Once you’ve located the organization shell, just click on the listing, and on the resulting page, click the ‘Enroll’ button at the bottom, left of the screen to access the orientation content.