My Settings

Content Start

IMPORTANT: Topics apply to all roles.

Use My Settings to:

  • View and edit your profile. A profile contains information about you. It could contain your picture, as well as your first and last name, e-mail address, and academic achievements. The type of information that appears and whether you can edit information depends on Institution Administrator settings. The profiles of Section Instructors, Teaching Assistants, Students, and Auditors are visible in courses where the Roster and PeopleLinks tools have been added.
  • Set options for tools. This is the central place to set default options for some tools, such as Mail and Calendar. You can also set the language and font.
  • View all of your current enrollment information.

The My Settings link is always available from the logo bar at the top right, unless you are working in a course, in which case you must return to the My Vista screen to see the link:

my settings

About Profiles

You can view your profile in the My Profile tab. Depending on administrator settings, you may be able to edit some or all of the information in your profile.
If you are a Section Instructor, Teaching Assistant, Student or Auditor, your profile is visible to members in courses where the Roster tool has been added. Section Designers only see profiles for Section Instructors and Teaching Assistants.

If the PeopleLinks tool has been added to a course, profiles are available to Section Instructors and Teaching Assistants from wherever user names appear. Depending on administrator settings, Students and Auditors may also see profiles.

IMPORTANT: It is recommended that all users keep their profile information up-to-date.

Editing your Profile

Depending on administrator settings, you may not be able to edit some or all of your profile, add a photo, or change the public/private status of certain items.

  • Select Edit Profile.

edit profile

  • Edit the available fields.
  • To make information in your profile visible to other users through the Roster and PeopleLinks tools, select Public.

mark public

  • To hide information in your profile from other users, clear the Public check box.
  • Select Save.

Setting Your Tool Options

You can set options for certain course tools. Tool options are personal and apply only to you. The options you set here are default, which means they apply to all of the courses you are enrolled in and are always in effect when you first enter a course. You can modify an option while working in a particular course, but the next time you enter that course, the default setting specified here is in effect.

You may not have access to some or all of the course tools these settings apply to. For example, if none of your courses include the Discussions tool, then the Discussions settings do not apply, although you still see the settings. You can also specify the language and font.

  • Select My Tool Options.

  • Using the Calendar settings
    • Specify whether you want the month, week, or day view to display when you enter Calendar by selecting an option from the preferred view drop-down list.
    • Specify the day that determines the start of the week by selecting an option from the Week begins on drop-down list.

  • Using the Discussions settings

discussion settings

    • Specify whether you want to display your posted messages as read by selecting Mark my own posts as read (this is the current setting in Blackboard Vista). If you do not select this check box, messages you post will be marked as unread.
    • Unread messages appear bold and are tagged as New.

    • Specify whether you want discussions to appear threaded by selecting a View option. A threaded discussion is a series of messages on the same subject with the originating message listed first followed by replies to that message. An unthreaded discussion consists of messages that are listed in chronological order.
    • Specify whether to show new messages or threads at the top or bottom of the list by selecting show new messages or threads at option.
    • Specify whether to show all messages or only unread messages when you first enter the Discussions tool by selecting a Show messages option. This option is disabled if the View option is set to Threaded.
      NOTE: The three options above do not apply to blogs or journal entries.

  • Using the Fonts settings

change fonts

    • Select the font size to display in your courses by selecting an option from the Font size drop-down list. You can also select to use the System default font size.
    • Specify the font type to display in your courses by selecting an option from the Font type drop-down list. You can also select to use the System default font type.
      NOTE: If you select Courier, formatting may not always be applied correctly.

  • Using the HTML Creator
    • Specify whether the HTML Creator starts by default. The HTML Creator is an HTML editing tool that allows you to create content in HTML without having to enter HTML tags.
    • You can use the HTML Creator in areas of a course where you enter text, such as messages in Discussions and Mail, and descriptions in Calendar entries.
      NOTE: The HTML Creator does not work in Firefox on Macs.

  • Using the Language settings
    • Specify the language by selecting an option from the My Language drop-down list.
    • The languages you can select from depend on administrator settings. You can also select to use the System default, which displays each course in the language the Section Instructor specified to use.
      NOTE: Your selection may not take effect in certain courses, such as language courses where the Section Instructor wants Students to use the language that is being taught.

  • Using the Mail setting

    NOTE: Mail forwarding is not available in your courses.

    • Specify whether to show all messages or only unread messages when you first enter Mail by selecting the Show messages option.
    • Specify whether to show new messages at the top or bottom of the list by selecting the Show new messages at option.

mail settings

  • Using the Paging settings
    • Select the default number of items to be displayed on each page by specifying a value in the Number of records per page text box. This will affect the view of students listed in Mail and Grade Book, plus the number of items showing on Assignments, Assessments, Discussions, File Manager, and other tools.

paging

  • Using the Who's Online setting
    • Specify your default online status

      NOTE: Specifying this option does not change your current status, just your default status, which will be in effect the next time you log in.

      • Depending on administrator settings, an Invisible online status may not be available in certain courses.
      • If you want your name to appear on the list of online users and appear available to chat, select Visible/Available.
      • If you want your name to appear on the list of online users but do not want users to send chat invitations, select Visible/Unavailable.
      • If you do not want your name to appear on the list of online users, select Invisible.

Who's Online

  • Select Save.

save

Viewing Your Enrollment Information

The My Roles tab displays all of your current enrollment information. Enrollment indicates whether you are assigned a role in a learning context.

my roles

EXAMPLE: A user is assigned the role of Student in the learning context Biology 101 - Morning