The Date Management Tool

The Date Management Tool, available from the instructor's menu, is a handy, versatile way to get an existing course ready for a new semester! Here are a couple of things to know--in order to make your work efficient and effective:

*The Use Course Start Date and Use Term Info functions essentially calculate the number of days between the current start date listed and the new date, and move the dates in the course forward that many days. If you run either of these options a second time, it will move all the dates forward again! If you have already run them once, we recommend using the List All Dates for Review option to fine-tune your dates.

Options on the Date Management screen.

*The Date Management Tool will NOT affect text you have entered in items (the Blackboard Learn mini-web pages), or in things like Assignment or Test titles. Nor will it affect information you have included as attachments--files like Word documents, PDFs or other attachments. It will not allow you to see or modify dates for web-conference (Collaborate) sessions (use Course Tools/ Blackboard Collaborate/ Scheduled Sessions to review and adjust those). And it will not display or allow you to update Publisher Content or dates related to other external tools. We strongly recommend you use the Student View to check your course after making updates, to confirm that everything is set the way you intended.

*The Availability dates for Small Group discussion forums are NOT fixed by the tool, though the Due Dates are.

*Adjust by Number of Days/ Shift All Dates By - If you enter something you did not mean to, and suddenly your course dates are being adjusted for an incorrect date in the future, you can enter NEGATIVE NUMBERS in this field to 'back up.'

*The List All for Review list, by default, is displayed in alphabetical order. To review by date, click the word Due at the top of the table (it is a link!) Now your course activities will be listed chronologically.

*In automatically updating dates from Fall to Spring and vice versa, remember that the changing dates for Fall Break and Spring Break mean that the second half of your semester will invariably need additional tweaking. The good news is that by using List All for Review, clicking Due at the top to arrange in chronological order, you can select multiple items and use Adjust Dates/ Adjust X Selected Items By... bottom of the page to choose the number of days to move them all at once.

*Announcements copied and reused from course to course - If you have Announcements that were not Date Restricted and you would like to reuse them with updated dates, there is a one-time, extra step. Go to the Announcement tool, and choose Edit for each announcement. Select Date Restricted, then put a check in Display After. It will populate with the current date and time. Adjust if desired. Click Submit. Now, like Announcements that DID have Date Restrictions set already, they will be modified along with the rest of the course. Going forward, if you create new Announcements you plan on reusing, be sure to add a Date Restriction/Display After date to each.

After you have read the list of caveats above, consult the Blackboard help resources for an illustrated explanation of this handy tool.

If we discover additional critical issues/ bugs, they will be listed on the Critical Issues page--including any workaround information.

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The Date Management Tool