Instructional Designer - Elevated LMS Access

This policy covers the limited circumstances in which elevated LMS access will be granted to employees who are not IT administrators and the limitations imposed on the use of such access

Administrator level access in the Blackboard Learn LMS is reserved for select IT team members who have Blackboard administration as part of their job duties and have been trained on the proper use of such.  The University recognizes that there are also a limited number of professional instructional designers who in order to perform their jobs duties effectively require an elevated level of access in Blackboard which can not be provided without enabling Administrator level access.    This policy defines how and when such access will be granted and the limitations that those granted this access agree to be bound by.

The Director or Online Programs will decide which instructional designers need Elevated LMS Access and will complete the appropriate request form provided by IT.  This form will be signed by the employee for whom the request is made, the Director of Online Programs, the CIO and the Provost or their authorized agents.

Employees granted Elevated LMS Access agree to the use this access with the limitations listed below:

• Creation of Blackboard user accounts

  • New Blackboard user accounts may be created on a limited basis for the purpose of developing and testing course content for instructors who are teaching courses in Online Programs, with the purpose of supplying them a means to provide content to instructional designers. 

  • Such users will be assigned a student role only, not set as a higher level of access within a course or the system overall.

  • Should the instructional designer leave the University, any user accounts they have created must be disabled or transitioned to an active course designer with elevated LMS access

  • The instructional designer will be responsible for providing access information to instructors and others who will be using the temporary user accounts.  This will include how to log into blackboard through the direct URl rather than the Google authentication (https://saintpeters.blackboard.com/webapps/login/?action=default_login) 

  • Created users should follow a standard naming convention that differentiates them from their “staff/instructor/student” account, so we (and them) can easily tell these apart

  • Instructional designers agree to never use their elevated LMS access on Blackboard of staff/faculty/students “real” accounts, including:

    • Changing the password of staff/faculty/students “real” accounts

    • Creating, modifying and deleting user roles. 

    • Changing student enrollment in SIS integrated courses (enrolling or un-enrolling)

• Integrations

  • Creating new integrations between Blackboard and other systems is allowed on a limited basis if necessary for course development and reviewed with the Office of Information Technology

  • Instructional designers agree to never use their elevated LMS access to modify the existing SIS connection with Colleague in any way

  • Instructional designers agree to never use their elevated LMS access to add/configure/modify/delete building blocks, Rest API and LTI tools without prior notice to the Office of Information Technology

• Security and Global System Admin changes

  • Instructional designers agree to never use their elevated LMS access to modify any global settings or options (example, security configuration, course/system roles, branding/themes/structure)

• Login as user tool

  • This tool is provided strictly for authorized course developers and the associated link must never be shared publicly

Violators of this policy may have the elevated LMS access reduced or revoked.

Approved by IT Governance Committee on 6/14/2022