Automated Blackboard course readiness check before each term

PromptCreate

Every Monday at 7am during the weeks leading up to a new term, audit every Blackboard course shell for that term and tell each instructor what is still missing before students arrive.

Start with Blackboard Get Terms to identify the upcoming term, the one whose start date is nearest in the future, and work out how many days remain until it begins. Then use Get Courses to pull every course in that term. Blackboard list endpoints page through results with offset and limit and return paging.nextPage, so walk every page rather than stopping at the first one.

For each course, run the readiness checks. Use Get Contents to see whether a syllabus or any posted material exists. Use Get Grade Columns to confirm there are graded items and that they carry points possible. Use Get Course Announcements to look for a welcome post. Use Get Course Memberships together with Get Course Roles to confirm someone with an instructor role is actually assigned. Also read the course availability flag to see whether the shell is still hidden from students.

Skip sandbox and template shells that have no enrolled students. Those are not real sections and should never generate an email.

Resolve each instructor's email address with Blackboard Get User. Send one Gmail Send a Message per instructor that covers all of their courses at once. List only the specific gaps you found rather than repeating a generic checklist, so an instructor missing nothing but a welcome announcement sees exactly that and nothing else. Keep the tone friendly, and let it grow more urgent as the term start date gets closer. Never email an instructor whose courses are all ready.

Post a single ranked rollup to the online learning team's channel with Slack Bot, ordered by days until term start and then by number of gaps. Name only the courses still missing something, so the instructional design team knows where to focus. Post one message for the whole audit, not one per course.

A note on the API: Blackboard versions its endpoints per resource, so the courses collection is v3 while gradebook columns are v2 and most other resources are v1. The default quota is 10,000 requests per 24 hours per site and this audit fans out several reads per course, so use the fields parameter to trim responses and keep the audit scoped to the single upcoming term.

What does this prompt do?

Finds the term that is about to start and reviews every course being taught in it
Checks each course for a syllabus or posted material, graded items with point values, a welcome announcement, an assigned instructor, and whether it is still hidden from students
Emails each instructor once, covering all of their courses together, listing only what is actually missing rather than a generic checklist
Posts a single ranked summary to your online learning channel so the team knows which courses need attention first

What do I need to use this?

A Blackboard account with permission to view courses, enrollments, gradebooks, announcements, and user records
A Gmail account to send the instructor emails from
A Slack workspace and a channel for your online learning or instructional design team
Your course shells set up for the upcoming term, so there is something to review

How can I customize it?

Change the day and time it runs, or how many weeks ahead of the term it should start checking
Adjust what counts as ready, for example requiring a syllabus and a welcome post but treating graded items as optional
Send the rollup to a different channel, or widen the rule that skips sandbox and practice shells

FAQs

Will instructors get an email every week even if their courses are ready?

No. Instructors are only contacted when something is actually missing. If all of their courses are ready, they hear nothing, which keeps people from tuning the reminders out.

What happens if one instructor teaches several courses?

They get a single email covering all of their courses at once, with the gaps listed course by course. Nobody receives one message per section.

Does this change anything inside Blackboard?

No. It only reads your course information. The only things it creates are the instructor emails and the one summary message in Slack.

How does it avoid nagging people about practice or template courses?

Sandbox and template shells with no enrolled students are skipped automatically, so the audit stays focused on real sections that students will actually see.

Does the reminder get more insistent as the term approaches?

Yes. The tone starts friendly when the term is still weeks away and becomes more urgent as the start date gets closer.

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