Missouri State Online Help Desk
The Missouri State Online Help Desk is the central contact point for Missouri State Online students.

Help Desk Contact Information

Phone: (417) 836-6119
Toll-free: (888) 767-8444
FAX: (417) 836-6494
E-mail: msonlinehd@missouristate.edu

Monday -  Friday: 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Monday - Thursday: 5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. (on call)
Saturday: 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Sunday: 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

The Missouri State Online Help Desk staff will be available to provide assistance during the hours posted above. Requests that come in after hours and during "on call" hours, will be forwarded to an answering service and then handled by the help desk staff the next business day.

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The Blackboard Learning System™ is a tool to support teaching and learning at Missouri State University. MSU has adopted Blackboard™ as their course management system to assist faculty in delivering online learning. Blackboard™ provides an integrated set of web-based tools which enable faculty and students to communicate and collaborate through threaded discussions, real-time conferencing, Podcasts, Wikis, and Blog tools. Instructors can add a variety of course materials, resources, and media-rich content. These same online materials and activities can also be used to complement a seated class – often referred to as a ‘blended’ or ‘web-enabled’ course.

Blackboard Course Request

Each semester, faculty wanting to use Blackboard should request a course website. This site will be a blank shell with no content.

Instructors who wish to use a course developed by another instructor should collaborate with that instructor and ask to be enrolled as an instructor in the original course. Instructors may use the Control Panel to copy content from one course to another. If you need help on how to copy a course, go to (tutorial page)

The Blackboard course request form is available at: http://ws.missouristate.edu/blackboard/

Blackboard Course Enrollment

All Blackboard courses are password protected and faculty and students only have access to the courses they are associated with; either as an “Instructor” role or a “Student” role.

Instructor Role

The instructor of the course is granted access to the course when the requested course website is created.

Student Role

Blackboard tutorials are now available for students. Please see the "Student Guides for Blackboard" in the Student Resources and Help Desk area of the MS Online website.

Course Availability

Before each semester

Courses made available to students when they are created. If an instructor makes their course Unavailable while developing the course content, it is their responsibility to make the course site available to students prior to the first day of the semester.

At the end of each semester

It is the responsibility of the instructor to make their course unavailable to students at the end of the semester. If they do not do so, students will still have access to content and exam materials.

Archiving Courses

Courses that are older than one academic year will be archived and removed from the Blackboard system without instructor action with the following exception:
If there is only one copy or version of the course, then it will remain on the system unless you request that it be removed.

If you need access to an archived course, send an email to blackboard@missouristate.edu with the course id and the length of time that you need the course available.

Blackboard Upgrade & Maintenance

In order to maintain peak performance of the Blackboard system, routine maintenance is required. Faculty and students will receive prior notification of any scheduled Blackboard maintenance.

Scheduled Upgrades:

Missouri State University will be upgrading from Blackboard 8.1 to Blackboard 9.0 during Summer 2010. Faculty will be receiving more information in regard to this upgrade including training opportunities for Blackboard 9.