Welcome to the final 2025 edition of the eLearning Technologies newsletter! As you wrap up fall and prepare for winter, this issue highlights helpful resources, key Blackboard updates, and upcoming events. Inside, you'll find a fall Blackboard usage snapshot, tips for closing your courses, and a first look at the updated Blackboard homepage. We're also sharing details about the Digital Literacy Institute (Jan. 6–8) and Speed TECHing (Jan. 23). Thanks for reading, and here's to a smooth start to the new semester!
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Fall 2025 Blackboard Stats
We want to thank you for your continued commitment to using Blackboard as a vital tool in your teaching. Your efforts play a critical role in student success and retention. With nearly 92% of courses utilizing due dates, students benefit from timely alerts that help them stay organized and on track. Thank you for making a difference! We've also included some other fun statistics about our Blackboard usage below:
- 93.57% of courses were made available to students
- Over 98% of faculty teaching fall classes logged into Blackboard
- Over 99% of students taking fall classes logged into Blackboard
- The highest number of concurrent sessions occurred on Oct 28 (162.3k sessions)
- Over 10 million logins during the Fall 2025 semester!
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Wrapping Up the Semester - A Few Closing Tips!
With final grades nearly submitted and the fall semester still fresh in your mind, take a moment to reflect on your course and jot down anything you might want to adjust or improve next time.
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Reflect and take notes: Consider creating a folder or content item in your Blackboard course, hidden from students, to organize reminders about potential changes, new resources to incorporate, or ideas for enhancing the learning experience. Storing this information directly in your course will make it easily accessible when preparing for the next semester.
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Request a template site for future curriculum development: We encourage departments to consider using template courses to help their part-time faculty. Shared course templates promote instructional consistency and help facilitate smooth transitions during instructor changes. Course coordinators with the course leader role can add/remove part-time faculty as needed. Additionally, since templates aren't tied to a specific semester, they remain available for ongoing use and won't be archived after a particular term.
If you'd like to request a Blackboard template, use this request form in our Service Portal. The form also allows you to specify who needs access to the template so they can easily copy the content into their Blackboard courses.
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Winter Prep for Blackboard: Frequent Requests
Winter 2026 Blackboard courses opened on November 10. Before the holiday break, faculty may find these common requests helpful as they prepare.
- Merge Course Request. Use this request to combine two or more sites into one parent site.
- Course Restore Request. Use this to restore a course from Blackboard archives no longer available online in Blackboard. Note: Faculty have access in Blackboard for two years and one semester in their list of courses. We retain three years beyond that in our archive.
- Course Copy. Use this Knowledge Base article to learn how to copy content from one course to another.
- Consultation Request. Use this to schedule a consultation with an eLearning Technologies liaison for assistance with Blackboard.
- Review our New Semester Checklist to help make sure you have everything ready to go for your students!
- Student enrollments in Blackboard winter courses begin on December 16, 2025.
Note: Tickets submitted while the university is closed (12/22/25 – 1/2/26) will be processed in the order received on January 5, 2026. Please refrain from sending follow-up emails; they create duplicate tickets and may delay processing.
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Blackboard Navigation Facelift: January 9, 2026
Blackboard releases new features and improvements each month. In the January update, we're excited to highlight the new Blackboard Homepage Navigation Facelift, designed to make the interface cleaner, more intuitive, and easier to navigate. This update goes live on January 9, 2026.
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This refreshed interface uses screen space more effectively and introduces several usability enhancements:
- New Home Button: Replaces the Exit option to help reduce navigation errors caused by accidentally clicking the "X" in the upper-right corner.
- Cleaner Navigation Layout: Offers clearer access to primary navigation tabs with less visual clutter.
- Improved User Profile Placement: The profile now appears at the top of the navigation panel, complete with a profile image for easier customization and visibility.
- Full-Screen Course View: Courses automatically open in full-screen mode, maximizing horizontal space and reducing distractions.
- Enhanced Course Banner: The course banner now spans the full width of the screen, with course ID and title displayed on a darker, more accessible background.
- Quick Course Switching: Users can jump directly to their four most recent courses or navigate to the full Courses page.
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Digital Literacy Institute: January 6–8, 2026
We're excited to partner with FTLC and the Digital Literacy Task Force to highlight the fully virtual January 2026 Digital Literacy Institute. Join us for case studies on how digital literacy is taking shape at GVSU and explore ways we can design opportunities for students to use, create, evaluate, and engage critically with digital technologies—safely, ethically, and in line with GVSU's definition of digital literacy.
In these interactive sessions, you and your colleagues will share concrete teaching strategies and discuss them. Some sessions will give you the chance to dive deeper into GVSU-supported technologies and explore how they can support your teaching and professional work. Faculty and staff are welcome to attend any (or all) of the sessions.
Register to access the Institute's Zoom links. FTLC will email all session links on January 6.
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Boost Digital Skills with Our "Digital Skills for College Success" Course!
This fall, we launched the new Digital Skills for College Success Blackboard course, created by the Digital Literacy Task Force to strengthen students' foundational digital literacy skills. All students and faculty were automatically enrolled, and early engagement shows a strong start for this new initiative.
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In its first semester, students completed the following modules:
- Essential Tech Skills: ~2,500 completions
- Cybersecurity: ~1,300 completions
- Blackboard/Online Learning Orientation: ~1,200 completions
These numbers reflect a meaningful level of participation in a first-time offering, especially for an optional, self-paced course.
Encouraging Continued Student Participation
As you prepare for the winter semester, we encourage faculty to remind students about this resource. A simple way to integrate it into your course is to create an assignment that asks students to upload their completion certificates. This helps you track engagement and ensures students gain core digital skills that support their academic success.
Faculty who want to bring technical and digital literacy skills into their courses, or who need in-person support for students, can reach out to Avery Olearczyk, Digital Literacy Librarian at olearcza@gvsu.edu.
Finding the Course & Student Support
Find the course in Blackboard under "Professional Development". Students needing tech help can reach out anytime:
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Discover new ways to elevate your teaching at Speed TECHing, an exciting professional development event for our GV faculty. Choose between two dedicated spaces: one offering personalized, one-on-one support and the other featuring quick, interactive technology demonstrations designed to inspire and empower your teaching practices. Think of it as speed-dating but with technology!!
The event will be held on January 23, 2026, between 9am and 12pm via Zoom.
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Please visit our website for a detailed breakdown of the Speed TECHing schedule and information about our one-on-one support available at this event.
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Professional Development Opportunities Self-Paced Online Professional Development Options
Accessibility
1/5/26 • 12pm – 12:30pm
1/16/26 • 12pm – 12:30pm
Blackboard
1/6/26 • 11am – 11:45am
1/7/26 • 2pm – 2:45pm
1/8/26 • 7pm – 7:45pm
1/29/26 • 1pm – 1:45pm
Collaboration and Digital Media Tools
1/9/26 • 1pm – 1:45pm
1/20/26 • 11am – 11:45am
1/22/26 • 1pm – 2pm
Digital Pedagogy
1/5/26 • 1pm – 2pm
1/23/26 • 9am – Noon
1/26/26 • 1pm – 2pm
1/27/26 • 1pm – 2pm
1/30/26 • 1pm – 2pm
Microsoft 365
1/7/26 • 1pm – 2pm
1/14/26 • 1pm – 2pm
1/28/26 • 1pm – 2pm
Panopto Video
1/8/26 • 11am – Noon
Visit our eLearning website for a complete list of other eLearning Technologies professional development offerings for the 2026 winter semester. Registration is available in Workday Learning.
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Connect with eLearning!
The eLearning Technologies team hopes your fall semester ends well, your holidays are restful, and your teaching is continually rewarding.
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Sincerely,
Kim Kenward, Director of eLearning Technologies
kenwardk@gvsu.edu
GVSU Information Technology
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