A Blog—a shorthand term that means Web log—is a personal online journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. In Blackboard Learn, only enrolled users can view and author Blogs. Blogs encourage Students to clearly express their ideas and addresses the need to expand various aspects of social learning. Blogs are an effective means of gaining insight into students' activities and provide a way to share the knowledge and materials collected.

Blogs consist of two elements:

• Blog entries: Text, images, links, multimedia, Mashups, and attachments added by course members open for comments.
• Comments: Remarks or responses to Blog entries made by other course members, including the Instructor.

An Instructor can choose to allow students to participate in Blogs in three ways:

• Course Blogs: Only the Instructor can create a course Blog and determines the topic to be addressed. All course members can add Blog entries and add comments to Blog entries.
• Individual Blogs: Only the Instructor can create a Blog for individual course members to use. Only the owner of the Blog is able to add Blog entries. All other course members can view and add comments.
• Group Blogs: If the Instructor enables the Blogs tool for the group, all group members can add Blog entries and make comments on Blog entries, building upon one another. Any course member can view group Blogs, but can only add comments. A group Blog is different from a threaded discussion as each entry does not need to continue the discussion of the previous entry, but can be a complete thought on its own.

The Instructor can edit and delete entries in any of the three Blog types and delete user comments.

1. Access the Course

2. Ensure Edit Mode is ON

3. Click on a content area where you want students to access the blog, e.g., Course Materials

4. Click on Tools, then click Blogs

5. On the next page, click the Create New Blog button as shown here.

Alternatively you could link to an existing blog and then

6. Click Next.

7. On the Create Blog page, type a Name for the Blog

8. Type optional Instructions for the Blog.

If needed, format the text and add images, links, multimedia, Mashups, and attachments using the functions in the Text Editor. Attachments added using the Text Editor can be launched in a new window and have alternate text added to describe the attachment.

9. Under Blog Availability, click the Yes option to make it visible to users

10. Use the Display After and Display Until date and time fields to limit the availability of the Blog. Select the Display After and Display Until check boxes in order to enable the date and time selections.

11. Under Blog Participation, select the Blog Type

a. Individual to All Students

b. Course

12. If desired, click Allow Anonymous Comments 

13. Under Blog Settings, select the way you want to Index Entries

a. Monthly

b. Weekly

14. Optionally, select the check box to Allow Users to Edit and Delete Entries

15. Optionally, select the check box to Allow Users to Delete Comments

16. Select No grading  or the Grade option and type the number of Points possible. Points possible will apply to one or more entries made by the user to the Blog topic.

Once a Blog is set to be graded, a column is created for it in the Grade Center.

NOTE:  It is permanently gradable and cannot be set to No grading.

17. Click Submit