1. Identify your NILE module-level courses and request any necessary course merges
2. Identify your NILE programme-level course
3. Enrol yourself onto your courses
4. Design and build your NILE course
4.1 Review the NILE Design Standards
4.2 Create a course structure and add content and activities to your NILE course
4.3 Copy content from your old NILE course into your new NILE course
4.4 Check the accessibility of your course content
4.5 Create an introductory video
4.6 Add your contact information
4.7 Set up your reading list
4.8 Set up your assignment submission points
5. NILE induction for students
6. Preview your course and release it to your students
7. More help and support
Each module-level NILE course has a unique ID; for example, PHI1001-SUN-2425-S1.
The first part of the course ID is the module code; in this case, PHI1001.
The second part of the course ID is the session code, in this case SUN. SUN (Standard University of Northampton) is a common session code and denotes that the course is delivered on campus here at the University of Northampton.
The third part of the course ID is the academic year; in this case 2425, denoting the academic year 2024/2025.
The final part of the course ID refers to the semester in which the course is taught; in this case S1, semester one.
For more information about NILE course IDs, please see our FAQ:
As well as NILE courses for each of your modules, there is also a programme-level course for your programme.
There is usually only one programme-level course per programme per academic year, and all students studying on that programme are enrolled on it (single and joint honours, full and part time, all years of study). However, top-up courses will usually have a separate programme-level course. If you plan to teach your top-up students alongside your other students you may want to merge your top-up course into your main programme-level course.
Programme-level NILE course IDs have two parts to them and are in the following format: BAHHISTY-2425
The first digits of the ID denote the type of the programme, with the most common of these being: BAH (BA); BSC (BSc); BEN (BEng); FDA (FdA); FDS (FdSc); MA (MA); MSC (MSc). The remaining digits denote the particular programme, in this case HISTY = History. As with module-level NILE courses, the final part of the course ID denotes the academic year in which the course is delivered.
Staff are not automatically added to the courses on which they are teaching, so you will need to add yourself to your module-level and programme-level NILE courses by selecting the 'Enrol as a Tutor on your Modules' link on the NILE Institution Page. You can find more information about this process on our FAQ:
Once you are enrolled on your NILE course, you will want to create a course structure using learning modules and folders. When this is done, you can then add teaching and learning content and activities, and assessment submission points. You can re-order and re-organise your course structure and the location of your course content within your course once it has been added, but it is much easier to plan the structure in advance than to re-organise your course later on.
The NILE Design Standards contain information and guidance on how to set out your NILE course, and detail the University's expectations and minimum standards for all NILE courses.
For more information, please see our guide:
You can create a course structure by using content containers, in particular, learning modules and folders:
Once you have a structure in place, you can then create and add content to your course:
As well as providing high-quality resources for your students, it is also important to devise activities which encourage your students to engage with those resources and with the theories, practices and ideas they encounter. More information about this is provided by Learning and Teaching Enhancement:
If you are planning to reuse teaching and learning materials from an existing NILE course, you may want to copy these across into your new course. Provided it is done carefully and in line with the guidance provided by the Learning Technology Team, the course copy process is an effective way of quickly populating a new NILE course with content from a previous iteration of the course.
The copy process from one Ultra course into another in reasonably straightforward. However, staff are strongly advised not to copy an entire Original course into Ultra course as it can cause problems in the Ultra course, and, because Original and Ultra courses are structured differently, it can then take a long time to clean up and re-organise the Ultra course.
Guidance on the course copy process is available from:
All content available to students in NILE courses must meet the 2018 Accessibility Regulations. You can find more about how to make sure that your NILE course content is accessible in our guide:
If you have not already done so, you may like to make your own video introduction to your module or programme. This could be a talking head video in which you give a friendly introduction to your module. Or, it could be a screencapture-with-voiceover video in which you give your students a tour of your NILE course so that they know where everything is. Or you could do both. Either way, shorter is better – a couple of minutes or so is ideal. Videos can be recorded and uploaded into NILE courses using Kaltura:
In your NILE course you should include information about the key people who may need to be contacted by students enrolled onto your module. Ideally, there will be a photo and contact details, along with how to make an appointment, and information such as office hours. In an Ultra course, contact information should be available to students within 'About this module' at the top of the course content area.
Contact information for all core University services is provided via the ‘Assist’ tab in the main NILE navigation menu, and is updated and maintained centrally, therefore this information does not need adding into individual Ultra courses. Staff may like to advise their students of this in their NILE courses. Additionally, the 'Assist' tab is promoted to NILE users on the NILE Institution Page (the NILE landing page).
Your NILE course will already contain a link to the reading list in the template, inside the 'About this module' learning module at the top of the course. The reading list link in the template will automatically connect to the correct Leganto reading list. More information about using and updating your reading list is available at:
Assignment submission points should not be copied across from the previous year’s NILE course as they may not copy correctly. It is important to set up new versions of all assignment submission points in your NILE course each year. Assignment submission points should be created inside the 'Assessment and submission' learning module.
If your students are new to NILE, you may like to include a link to the Learning Technology Team's NILE Introduction, Help & Support page for students in your module or programme-level NILE course. This will help new students to understand more about how NILE works, and includes information about the following:
You can add a link in your course to the NILE induction guide using the web link tool:
By default, new NILE courses are unavailable to students, so you will need to make your course available in order for them to see it. However, before making your course available it's a good idea to check how the course will appear to students by using the Student Preview feature built into the Blackboard interface.
It is important to make sure that all of your NILE courses are available prior to your students starting, otherwise they may believe that they have not been correctly enrolled onto their programme and modules.
